Shit. Rick’s face was out there, for all the world to see. Corey’s going to kill us.
“Run, Elijah, run!” the woman shouted. She grabbed at the boy’s shoulder, yanking him to his feet, and Jace glimpsed the weapon in her hand.
A stun gun. She’d tased Rick.
The woman took off running faster than Jace thought a pregnant woman could run. “Elijah, come on!” she screamed. But the boy was frozen in place, staring down at Rick.
Jace rushed to where Rick lay and the little boy slowly looked up at him, eyes wide. Looking every bit as shocked as Jace felt.
“Elijah!” the pregnant lady shouted from the doorway of the laundromat. The look of horror on her face made Jace think that she’d thought the little boy was behind her. She started to run back toward them but slipped and fell back into the laundromat with another scream.
Jace could grab the kid. He could do it.
But . . . he couldn’t do it. It’s wrong. Meeting the boy’s terrified eyes, he made another decision. “Run,” he snapped. “I said run!”
It was when the kid finally started to run that Jace realized people were beginning to gather, to stare.
To take video. Things had just gone from bad to worse. Goddammit.
Rick was still on the ground, twitching and moaning. The smell of urine was thick. He was going to be so mad.
Don’t think about that. Just move.
Jace hauled his brother onto his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, grateful that Rick was the smaller of the two of them. Jace threw him in the van, closed the side door, and ran to the driver’s side, revving the engine as he made their escape. What have I done?
Rick was gonna be pissed off. Jace had let the kid go.
No, he’d made the kid go.
Corey was . . . Jace shuddered at what Corey was going to do to them. Don’t think about that. Just drive.
1
The Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 9:00 A.M.
MORNING, JOY,” VAL Sorensen singsonged.
Their office manager was at her desk in the lobby of Broussard Investigations, frowning at her computer monitor. “Welcome back, Val,” she said without looking up. “How was your assignment?”
“Boring. Some CEO said that someone was threatening his wife, but he was just worried that she was getting some from the pool boy on the side and wanted a chaperone.”
Joy glanced up. “Was she getting some from the pool boy?”
“Not my job to know,” Val said, then laughed. “But yeah, she totally was.” Waving the box she held, she was rewarded when Joy’s normally stoic expression became rapturous. Val gestured to the box like it was a game show prize. “See something you like?”
Joy’s lips twitched. “Depends. Does that box in your hands contain Marica’s cupcakes?”
Val smirked. Her pals MaryBeth and Jessica owned one of the best bakeries in the Quarter. “They were Marica’s, but then I paid for them, so now they’re mine.” She put the box on Joy’s desk, centering it carefully on the blotter, because a crookedly placed anything was annoying as hell. “And now they’re yours. Happy birthday, Joy.”
Joy grinned. “You stood in that ridiculous line for me?”
“I did indeed.” She propped her hip on the corner of Joy’s desk. “I didn’t have to, because MaryBeth already had these set aside for me and told me to just come to the front of the line to pick them up. But the crowd looked unruly, so I decided it would be safer to wait.”
Besides, it was a beautiful fall morning and she’d wanted to breathe it in before getting stuck behind her desk all day. She loved her job at Broussard Investigations—except for the paperwork, and she had a ton of it waiting for her.
“Well, thank you,” Joy said. “Although you could have hip-checked anyone who gave you any shit, Miss Roller Derby Queen.”
Val rolled her eyes. “I don’t hip-check random strangers. Plus, there were a few old ladies in front of me who must have come from morning mass. They were clutching rosaries and didn’t look scared to use them.”
“Such foolishness.” Joy lifted the box’s lid, sniffed deeply, then sighed. “Chocolate.”
“Of course. I’m not stupid.”
“No, you’re not.” Joy tilted her head in a speculative way that had Val sliding off the desk and taking a wary step back.
“What?”
Joy smiled up at her. “Nothing.” She took two of the cupcakes from the box and handed them to Val. “One for you and one for the child.”
Val frowned. “What child?”
The door to their boss’s office opened and Burke Broussard appeared. A big and brawny retired Marine, Burke was somewhere in his midforties. A very handsome man, he turned heads everywhere.
Just not mine.
Burke was perfect as a friend, but she’d never even considered anything more. He was . . . too big. Way too big. Val had to swallow back the memories of the others who’d been too big, all while keeping a smile plastered on her face.
Burke knew her history, and he’d never been anything but kind and respectful of her boundaries. She trusted him implicitly, and that was a big deal for her. She’d been lucky the day he’d asked her to join his team. Broussard Investigations was a tightly knit group, and everyone was protective of the others. They were as close to a family as one could get without blood ties, and Val found the love and comfort here that her own broken family could no longer provide.
“Morning, Val,” Burke rumbled in that deep Cajun drawl of his. “You have a new client. Bring a cupcake for him.”
Okaaaay. Holding the two cupcakes, Val walked to Burke’s office door, hearing the whir of Joy’s motorized wheelchair as the older woman followed her, unabashedly curious. A shiver of trepidation raced down Val’s spine.
A moment later, she knew why. Assistant District Attorney Jean-Pierre Cardozo was coming to his feet, having been seated in one of the chairs in front of Burke’s desk. She’d first met him at a party back in the summer. Burke and his staff had been celebrating with some clients after closing an all-hands-on-deck case when Cardozo had arrived, dressed in an expensive black suit that made him look like a Fortune 500 CEO.
He’d been charming as hell and impossible to ignore, despite her best efforts—that day and later. Unable to resist, she’d found herself googling him later that evening, learning surprisingly little personal information. Other than a few of the cases he’d tried up in the New York City courts, the man had no real internet presence, which took a lot of talent. Burke’s IT guy, Antoine, would surely have been able to dig up a lot more, but she’d been unwilling to ask. Unwilling to voice aloud that the man had fascinated her.