Sting (32 page)

He held the backseat door for her now, then said to Wiley, “Let me drive,” and held out his hand for the keys. Wiley hesitated. Shaw said irritably, “You'll be making calls and doing all that Bureau shit. Let me drive.”

Wiley tossed him the keys and got in on the passenger side. “Gwen said she'd meet us at the main entrance.”

The streets of the Quarter were still asleep, virtually free of traffic except for delivery trucks. But inside the car, the three of them were keyed up and anxious. Especially Jordie. “When and where did this sighting of Josh take place?”

“
If
it was Josh,” Wiley said. “But it sounds like him. It was Saturday afternoon at a parcel service drop-off box.”

“Where he sent the package with the cell phone inside?” Shaw guessed.

Wiley nodded. “Agents tracked it back to that box, situated on the parking lot of a strip center. They canvassed the business owners. One of them knocks off early on Saturdays. As he was leaving last week, he remembers a guy walking away from the drop box. He called out to him that he got lucky, made it in the nick of time before the last pickup. Something like that.

“The guy didn't turn around, but he waved his hand in acknowledgment. The shopkeeper was shown a picture of Josh taken off the security camera in the convenience store. He said he couldn't be certain, but it looked like the same guy.”

“What time did he knock off?”

“Three thirty. Fifteen minutes before the last pickup.”

“And three and a half hours after Josh learned about Jordie's kidnapping on the noon news,” Shaw said. Musing out loud, he added, “But he sent the package to Extravaganza anyway.”

“In desperation, I guess,” Wiley said. “He was hedging his bet that you'd already iced her. Like he did when he called me later that night and bargained with me for her safe return.”

“I guess.” The explanation didn't quite gel, but Shaw said, “At least this gives us a place to start searching for his haven.”

“Haven?” Jordie asked.

“He's bound to have one,” Wiley said and explained to her why he, Hickam, and Shaw thought so. “A place stockpiled with necessities where he could stay indefinitely. Someplace close to you.” Noticing Shaw's frown, he said, “What? You disagree now?”

“No, Jordie's definitely his security blanket. But maybe we're being shortsighted. Maybe he didn't come back to this area only because it represents home. Maybe he has unfinished business in the neighborhood.”

“The money?” Wiley ventured.

“That's my theory,” Shaw said. “Because if Panella had it—”

“—he'd be lighting cigars with hundred-dollar bills,” Jordie said quietly.

“Right.” Shaw looked across at Wiley. “She's quoting me.”

“Ah. Well, we won't know who has what until we find either him or Panella.”

“Any leads on him?” Shaw said.

“NOPD is still convinced Hickam was shot by a gangbanger. They're only halfheartedly circulating the BOLO for Panella.”

“Even after what Linda Meeker said about the weird voice?”

“They said that Linda Meeker was a hysterical preacher's kid caught doing a naughty, so anything she said is unreliable, and, anyway, those devices are easily obtainable off the Internet.

“Said a guy like Royce Sherman would have made scores of enemies among his white trash acquaintances, which is no doubt true. Bottom line, they think Royce Sherman and Hick are unrelated cases and remain skeptical that Panella is within ten thousand miles of the Pelican State.”

“Skeptical my ass,” Shaw scoffed. “Probably some were on Panella's payroll. Still are.”

“Come now,” Wiley said. “Are you suggesting there's corruption in the NOPD?”

Shaw gave him a wry smile. “You've got locals searching in and around Bayou Gauche for Josh?”

“Plus a squad of U.S. marshals and state troopers. Wish we had Morrow, but it's not his parish. Anyway, I told them to leave no stone unturned.”

Shaw pulled in as close as he could get to the main entrance of the FBI building. “Keep the motor running,” he said to Wiley. “I'll walk Jordie in.”

“I'm not going in.”

Shaw and Wiley turned in unison toward the backseat. Jordie's expression was as resolute as her tone. Further evidence that she meant business was the pistol she was holding on them.

S
haw lifted his gaze from the palm pistol to Jordie's face. “That looks like my Bobcat.”

“I was afraid you'd miss it inside your boot when you put them on.”

“I was in a hurry.”

“I took it to protect myself in case it wasn't you who came back from the gate.”

“Smart move. But why are you pointing it at Wiley and me?”

“Keep your hands where I can see them, please.”

Shaw complied, actually raising his hands in surrender, which was vaguely mocking.

“I was about to give you the pistol back,” she said, “but then Agent Wiley said I was being dropped off with Gwen while the two of you hunt down my brother. I decided to keep the pistol and use it to persuade you that I should go along.”

Wiley looked over at Shaw. “This is what comes from sleeping with a suspect.”

“She's not going to shoot me.”

“She stabbed you.”

“But she didn't know then that I'm a federal agent. She knows better than to shoot a federal agent, or even to brandish a weapon at one, especially when she's within full view of the fucking FBI building.” As he reached the end of all that, he was shouting.

“Please stop referring to me in the third person.”

“You're holding two federal officers at gunpoint, and that's what you're worried about? Third person?”

“I'm worried about the well-being of my brother.”

He looked over at Wiley and said as an aside, “Lifetime pattern.”

“Enough, Shaw! Put the car in gear and drive.”

“I can't do that and keep my hands where you can see them.”

“Stop being cute. I'm serious.”

“You're really going to do this? Face criminal charges?”

“If I have to.”

“The chances of succeeding here are nil, Jordie. Wiley and I are both armed. Raised hands or not, between the two of us we can—”

“You're not going to hurt me.”

“Right, I'm not. Because you're going to come to your senses and give me the pistol. Now.” He pushed his right hand between the front seats.

She yanked the small handgun out of his reach.

“Give me the friggin' pistol.”

“Or what?”

“I'll take it from you if I have to,” he warned softly. “I don't want to hurt you, but if it comes to that, I will.”

“No you won't.”

“What makes you think so? You and me last night? That was a time-out. We're back to business now.”

That smarted, but she stayed focused. “You won't do anything—”

“Don't count on that.”

“—because I know where Josh is.”

She could tell he hadn't expected that. He looked over at Wiley, and, when he came back to her, his eyes were as razor-sharp as they'd been the first time she'd seen him in the bar. But now they were also glinting with anger.

“You've known all this time?” Then, shouting again,
“All this time?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I swear on my soul. Not until Agent Wiley mentioned Bayou Gauche. Then I knew.”

She couldn't tell whether he believed her or not. His gaze was still hard and demanding. “All right, where is he?”

“Drive.”

“We're not budging an inch till you tell us where to find Josh.”

“I'll direct you to where I believe he might be, but only after we get to Bayou Gauche. Not before.”

“This standoff is wasting time, Jordie.”

“I'm aware of that.”

“You're willing to give Panella time to find Josh first?”

“No,
you
are by sitting here!”

“Shit!”

With the expletive reverberating, Shaw faced forward, dropped the gear stick into Drive, and steered the car into a hard turn. “Feel free to read her her rights,” he said to Wiley. “Or are you scared of her?”

Wiley frowned at the rebuke, but turned to Jordie. “Okay, you've got our attention. Start talking.”

“You've seen Josh in what you referred to as freak-out mode.”

“He comes apart at the seams. Easily.”

“Correct. If he's cornered by U.S. marshals and state troopers, who do you think he'll best respond to? Armed officers? Or me?”

Wiley looked over at Shaw. “She has a point. She convinced him to take the prosecutor's deal when neither Hick, nor I, nor his own lawyer made a dent. If anybody can persuade him to give himself up now, it's her.”

Shaw didn't comment, but his body language came through loud and clear. He was chewing his inner cheek, driving fast, his fingers clutching the steering wheel so tightly, they'd turned white. For letting his pistol get lifted, he was probably madder at himself than he was at her.

Wiley asked her, “So where do we find your brother?”

“I don't know that we'll find him, but I know where to look. You know the Christmas festival and boat parade they have on Bayou Gauche?”

“I know about it. Never been. Marsha says we should take the kids one year.”

“I'm glad you brought this up,” Shaw said. “Remind me to book my reservation.”

She ignored him. “After the…accident, our family no longer celebrated Christmas at home, so we went the first year they held the boat parade. My dad's elderly aunt lived in Bayou Gauche. We picked her up at her house and took her to the waterfront with us.

“Josh worked at spoiling every family outing. That night he was particularly sullen. Bent on ruining everyone's time. He said he'd have rather stayed away from the crowd. Why hadn't we just left him at the aunt's house? He could've watched the parade from there.”

She paused, studying first Shaw's and then Wiley's expressions. Both were skeptical, but neither spoke.

She plowed on. “To me her house seemed isolated. No neighbors to speak of. On the edge of a swamp. Its distance from town was deceptive, however, because the road to it winds around town. As the crow flies, it was much closer.

“When Josh said he should have been left behind, he pointed out to me that from the banks of the bayou where we were watching the parade, you could see the light poles from Great-Aunt's boat dock. Just barely. But every once in a while you could catch the light from them twinkling through the trees.”

“Twinkling?” Shaw's penetrating gaze was fixed on her in the rearview mirror. She avoided his scornful remark and stayed on Wiley.

He asked, “Is the old lady still alive?”

“She died not long after that. I hadn't thought of her or that occasion in years, not until you mentioned Bayou Gauche.”

“What became of her house?”

“I have no idea. Dad wasn't an heir, if that's what you're thinking. We never went there again.”

Wiley frowned. “What I'm thinking is that it's—”

“A crock of crap,” Shaw said.

“—very incidental,” Wiley finished.

“Ordinarily, I would agree with you,” she said, addressing Wiley's comment, not Shaw's. “But Josh isn't ordinary. He fixates on things. Never forgets anything. If he remarked on her house, even incidentally, when he was a boy, it's still in his mind. Besides, he has no other connection to that town. What else would draw him back there even long enough to send a package?”

Shaw said, “It's so farfetched, it's—”

“It's
something
!” she snapped. “Do you have anything better?”

Wiley raised a hand, signaling for a truce, and asked her if she had an address or any portion of one for the house.

“No.”

“That true, or are you just not sharing?”

“It's true, but I wouldn't share if I knew. You'd inform the marshals and everyone else, and they'd get there ahead of us. I want a chance to talk with Josh first.” She raised the pistol slightly. “I demand it.”

His annoyance plain, Wiley looked across at Shaw, who seemed to have run out of sardonic commentaries. Wiley came back to her. “Do you remember how to get to the house?”

“I was a child and didn't pay attention to directions, things like that. But once we hit town, I think I can follow my nose.”

Wiley studied her for a moment, then said sternly, “You had better not be jerking us around, Ms. Bennett.”

“I'm not.”

“She's not.” Shaw steered the car off the road so swiftly, Jordie and Wiley were slung aside in their seats. She managed to keep hold of the pistol as the car skidded to a sudden halt on the shoulder.

Shaw turned to her. “Don't you think I'd notice that the pistol in my boot was missing?” Then he turned to Wiley, who was looking at him agape. “I just wanted to see what she'd do with it. Since she didn't shoot us, I think she's told us the truth.”

Josh didn't know how Panella had learned about the house formerly owned by his great-aunt. After she died, it had stayed uninhabited for years and had become known by locals as the “haunted house.”

When he'd inquired about it, the realtor had been glad to finally unload it. He'd bought it under a fake name and had been scrupulous not to leave a paper trail leading back to his ownership. He had thought it was a refuge known only to him.

He supposed it no longer mattered, though, how Panella had discovered it. He had.

He'd come in the early-morning hours, not at night, when Josh would have expected him. He'd been sitting at the kitchen table fiddling with the box of toothpicks as he was wont to do when contemplating a problem, like what his next move should be, when suddenly the back door was thrust open and Panella had stormed in.

Josh had nearly wet himself.

“You double-crossing motherfucker. Did you really think you'd get away with this?”

It was a rhetorical question. Panella had hauled him out of his chair with such force, his teeth snapped together, catching his tongue between them. He tasted his own blood. Panella threw him against the wall and held him there, his left hand pressing Josh's Adam's apple, vowing that if Josh didn't tell him what he needed to know, he would suffer hours of medieval-caliber torture before being allowed to die.

Now Josh's gaze moved from the man's unblinking eyes, to the pinkie ring that glittered from his left hand, and finally to the pistol held in his right.

Josh needed to pee, wanted to cry, wanted to tear out his hair in outrage, pitch a fit to end all fits. He'd been so close…so
close
to getting away. Now things weren't looking too good for his future, immediate, or long range.

“That banker must be mistaken,” he said. “A password for Jordan Bennett? For
Jordie
? Why would she have a password to your account?”

Panella just stared. His expression never changed.

“Maybe it's her company name. Extravaganza. That could be it. No, that's probably too long. And passwords often require a combination of numerals and letters, don't they? They're usually case sensitive, too. Upper. Lower. Maybe her birthday? Her birthday backward? Our mother's maiden name?”

Realizing that he was babbling, he stopped, huffed several breaths to stave off hyperventilation, and tried to stop the pending onslaught of crippling anxiety. But he looked into Panella's face, and the panic attack roared toward him like an unstoppable freight train.

He had to produce that password.