Target (22 page)

The other two men nodded silently.

Nick wanted to get to Poke Around in plenty of time, just in case Aurelie got it into her head to leave before he got there.

The thoughts he had about her were anything but brotherly.

E
ileen was delighted to have Hoover at the shop. She had encouraged Aurelie to bring the dog's big bed and set it in the middle of the displays.

“Why don't you bring him every day?” Eileen asked. She'd already made the suggestion several times in the past couple of days but this was the first time Aurelie had followed through. Eileen rubbed Hoover between the ears and, not so unobtrusively, dropped a handful of dog biscuits under his nose.

“He takes up a lot of room,” Aurelie pointed out.

“He also looks a lot fiercer than he is.” Eileen gave Aurelie a meaningful look. “I know I'm probably silly to be nervous, but I am.”

“You'd be silly not to be nervous,” Aurelie told her, wondering what Eileen would say when she knew about more recent events. “I hope customers don't run away when they see Hoover.”

“Ooh, he's just a little ol' bear,” Eileen said.

Aurelie smiled. “Take a good look at his teeth.”

Eileen peered at Hoover's mouth. “Are you going to the mayor's town meeting after work?” she asked. “He's going to talk about what's going on around here. Matt Boudreaux will have something to say, too.”

Aurelie had made vague note of it. “I'm not sure.” She wanted to run with Nick. And she didn't want to run with him. He seemed to have taken her on as his mission in life, to protect, comfort and become the object of his sexual fantasies and needs.

The thought made her blush.

Was that all it was? His fantasies? His needs? She couldn't know.

“The meeting's at Ona's Out Back,” Eileen said. “I'm going. It's hard to sift the important comments out from the hearsay, but I think I have to be informed.”

“We all should be,” Aurelie agreed. That run with Nick would have to wait.

“There's Sabine,” Eileen said.

Surprised, Aurelie looked up in time to see Sabine backing through the door, pulling a loaded handcart.

“How's Ed?” Aurelie asked, then glanced quickly at Eileen, who was busy looking at what Sabine had brought.

“He's good,” Sabine said. “Takes more than a good shove into a tree to lay my Ed up for long.”

Eileen raised her face. “What did you say?”

Sabine wiggled long, French-manicured nails. “Just joking around,” she said, her eyes on Aurelie, and on her frown. “Ed took a tumble and banged himself up a bit, but he's workin' away same as usual. I sure am tickled you sold down those radios. I told you so. Them armadillos had every gardener in town keepin' the night watch on their plants.”

She was right, the pastel-colored radios had rushed from the store with grateful new owners anxious to try them out. And the positive reports had poured back.

Eileen stood up, a puzzled expression on her dramatic face. She had opened a box and removed a miniature plastic garden gnome. “I thought you were bringing more radios,” she said. “Aurelie, would you find Sabine's check, please. We don't have one of that first batch left.”

“These are the new ones,” Sabine said. “Updated version guaranteed to make all the people who bought the first variety want a second one.”

Aurelie smiled as she went to the box where Eileen kept checks for consignment items.

“Look at this,” Sabine said. She took the garish gnome from Eileen and popped off the back so show off what was inside. An even smaller radio than the first batch, wired through to an on-off switch just above the base. She closed the gnome again and flipped the switch. Afro-pop filled the shop and Aurelie immediately started tapping her toes. “They just have to remember to switch over to talk radio.” Sabine set the fancy radio on a counter and launched into a stomping dance, wiggling her hips, tossing her bead-clacking braids and waving her arms above her head. “C'mon,” she said to Eileen. “Shake your booty.”

Aurelie smiled. Eileen wasn't the “shake your booty” type.

“Whoa,” Sabine cried. “Oh, woman, look at this.”

And Eileen was proving Aurelie wrong in the shaking department. She copied Sabine, flipping her hips and twirling.

Hoover howled.

Aurelie didn't realize the shop door had opened again until her dog climbed from his bed and gamboled heavily to butt Nick's legs. She stood still.

Grinning, Nick shook both hands in the air and yelled, “Don't let me stop you.” Promptly, he went to Aurelie and swept her into a fast sort of two-step. Despite a clapping audience, they didn't make it far before Aurelie tripped over Nick's feet and he held her up against him until she found her footing.

Sabine turned the music down. “I didn't know you could dance like that, Nick,” she said.

“Probably just as well,” he said, suitably humble. “What's that supposed to be?” He pointed at the noisy gnome.

“Sabine's sock-'em armadillo blockers,” she said. “Improved, that is. I've moved on from plain old radios to wiring them inside pieces of garden art. Fixed every one of these up myself.” She unpacked an orange toadstool, a wishing well the size of a child's sand bucket and a flamingo with short legs. The latter she plunked triumphantly on the counter beside the gnome. “The trick is you gotta play talk radio. Them critters, they hate talk radio. Sends 'em runnin'.”

Nick watched the women, the relaxed grins on their faces, and resented anything that came along to get in the way of simple fun.

“You gotta have one of these for that condo of yours,” Sabine announced. She put her head to one side while she studied him. “A flamingo man if ever I saw one,” she said and handed him a box. “Never did give you a housewarming gift—now I have. And while we're on the subject, I've got to get in and clean that place from one end to the other.” She rolled her eyes and slapped a hand over her heart. “Oh, my, I don't want to think what I'll find over there.”

Once he was sure she'd finished, Nick held up the box and said, “Thank you for this. I'll have to ask you to wait a little longer before you move the bulldozers into the condo.” He'd already contacted Matt, and at that moment cops were crawling over every inch of the place, hoping to find even a tiny useful clue.

He looked at his watch. “I expect you'd appreciate going home to change first, Aurelie. And getting Sucker settled in. It's too hot for him to be running out there.”

“Bouviers des Flandres have a double coat,” Aurelie said. “Fur and hair. The hair on the outside helps cool 'em down. That's why people make a mistake when they cut the coat short in summer. He's fine in the heat and he loves to run.”

That informational message had sounded like something intended to divert him. “If you say so. I've got my stuff outside in my car. I'll bring it to your place and we'll go from there.”

He noticed that the ebullience of a few minutes ago had dribbled away. Eileen and Sabine were busy with tasks.

Dropping down beside Sucker, he opened the dog's mouth and hooked out half a dozen colored glass marbles he must have lifted from an artificial-plant display nearby. “I thought I heard him crunching something,” Nick said. “If we don't watch it, this guy will kill himself.” He looked up at Aurelie. “What is it?” he asked quietly.

She knelt on the other side of Sucker. “He does spit the really bad things out himself,” she said. “It's a game.”

Nick nodded and waited for her to go on. Hanging sun catchers moved colors through her black hair. Mostly she kept her lashes lowered but when she looked at him, her eyes were almost painfully blue.

“The mayor's having a meeting at Ona's Out Back.” Her voice scratched. “I think I have to go just in case someone starts talking about us. I don't see how they can avoid it, really.”

Nick got up and offered her a hand. She took hold and he pulled her to her feet. When she was almost toe-to-toe with him he realized how small she was. “So you're canceling our date.”

She checked to make sure they weren't overheard. “I didn't really make it, Nick.”

He thought about that and couldn't argue. “You didn't turn me down.”

Her quick smile helped his ego. “I didn't want to, that's why. But one of us has to be responsible.”

He grabbed his belly and pretended to be hurt. “You've wounded me,” he said. “What time is the meeting?”

“Eight.”

“I'll take you,” he told her, knowing that once again he wasn't giving her any choices unless she wanted to make a fuss, and she wouldn't do that here. “Do Sarah and Delia know?”

“I'd better call them,” Aurelie said.

“They already know,” Sabine piped in, with no sign of embarrassment at listening to their conversation. “They'll be there, not that I know what big-shot Mayor Damalis can say to make anything better. Unless he's figured out a way to bring people back to life.”

 

Once they'd left the shop with Hoover, Aurelie had to deal with jumpiness again. It happened every time she was alone with Nick. “We've got a couple of hours before the meeting,” she told him, cramming her hat lower over her eyes. “I can walk to Ona's from my place. We'll meet there.”

“Okay,” he said, but he gave her that closed-up look that turned her stomach. “I had a meeting this afternoon. I'd like to tell you about it, but not where we'll be overheard. The cops are at my place.”

She glanced across at the condos and saw two cruisers in the driveway. “Why are they there? What's happened?”

“I'll tell you about it.”

“Is it okay for them to be over there if you're not?”

“I asked them to come, then I didn't want to stay while they dug around.”

“Come to my place,” she said, knowing that's what he wanted. “You can kick back until it's time for the meeting. I've got some leftover stuff from New Orleans to deal with on the computer.”

“You sure?”

She let out a slow breath. “Yes. You like sangria?”

“Sure. I can't remember the last time I had any.”

“I make it sometimes.” She unlocked the Hummer, and Hoover almost ran her down getting in. The dog went to his perch where he could see between the two front seats, and Nick got in on the passenger side.

They shut the doors. “I've got a big jug of sangria. I didn't know what I was going to do with it. I had a bunch of lemons that needed to be used. You know how that goes? You just get an urge to make something and you get carried away.”

“All the time,” he said.

Aurelie gave him a narrow-eyed stare until he looked back and grinned.

They faced each other for too long, or perhaps not long enough. She didn't want to look away and could tell he didn't, either.

Finally, Aurelie drove off. “Patrick Damalis is holding this meeting tonight,” she said.

“I don't know how that guy got elected mayor,” Nick said. “A lot of people don't like him.”

“Yes, but he's got loads of money.” Patrick owned the best, clubby hotel in town—the only clubby hotel in town. “Some say you've got to have something he wants to get a contract in this town.”

She slowed at a corner. “Sounds familiar. I've been living in the land of FBI.”

“New Orleans?”

“Yeah. Friends, brothers and in-laws. You've got to have contacts to get anywhere in town. You do as well as the people you know.”

Sucker licked Nick's ear. A weaker man would have fallen sideways in his seat. “Thanks,” he said to the dog. “Now I won't need a shower.” That got him another lick to the ear, and another up the side of his face from chin to hairline.

“Back off, Hoover,” Aurelie said. “Finn should have run for mayor.”

Nick smothered an explosive laugh.

“What?” She checked her mirrors and changed lanes. The town was pretty deserted.

“Can you really see Finn as mayor of Pointe Judah?”

“He'd have the place running perfectly in no time,” Aurelie said.

“He'd clear the place out,” Nick told her. “No-guff Duhon they call him around the construction industry. Can you see him putting up with Lobelia Forestier and her clones? Anyway, Emma's first husband was mayor here—crooked mayor. She and Finn wouldn't want anything to do with all that.”

“Could be Finn would take a hard line on crime,” Aurelie said.

He put a hand on her bare shoulder. “Go easy on the police. We're expecting too much, too soon. Sure, cases get solved within hours sometimes, but this one was a long time in the making. A lot of thought went into what Colin would do once he found me.”

They arrived outside Frances and Lynnette's salon. Before Aurelie got out of the Hummer, she took her gun out of her purse and slid it into her skirt pocket. The salon was still open, which helped her feel less isolated. She could see people wearing floral cutting capes moving around inside the shop.