The scent was comforting and made her ache for the feel of his warmth at her back, the weight of his arm draped over her.
They were neck-deep in a disaster, gambling everything on the choices and actions they made today, and she had never slept better in her entire life than she had last night with Aiden curled around her.
Home. Aiden was her home. Her constant that would never change. No matter how horribly the world fell apart, as long as they were together, she’d be able to deal with it.
Footsteps thudded up the exterior stairs. Aiden.
He unlocked the door and swept inside carrying two plates of food covered in aluminum foil. “Good morning. I have breakfast casserole with andouille sausage, eggs and potatoes, and bananas Foster French toast.”
“Mmm. It smells delicious. If Aunt Henri keeps this up, we’ll never want to leave.”
He set the plates on the counter and unwrapped them.
“You were gone a long time.” She slipped a shirt on and padded over to him. “Where were you?”
Leaning over, he cupped the back of her head and kissed her gently. Tenderly. “I went to Jackson Square to put things in position while it was still dark, before the FBI sets up.”
“You should’ve woken me. I would’ve gone with you.”
“It only required one of us to take care of it and I wanted to let you sleep.”
He was amazing, beautiful, impossibly sweet and so much more than she deserved.
Rising on the balls of her feet, she threw her arm around his neck and kissed him again. “Thanks. But we should stick together.”
He poured two cups of coffee and handed her one. “Hurry up and eat, then get dressed. Junior is waiting downstairs to give us a ride so we can check out locations.”
She dug into the breakfast and silently sang Henri’s praises.
“Which one of us is going to call Enzo and get him in play?” Aiden asked.
“You’re better at sweet-talking than I am.”
“Sweet won’t work on him. I think he needs the way you talk.”
Charlie shrugged. “If you think so.”
Aiden picked up her jeans and pulled out the business card Enzo had given her with his personal cell number. He dialed using one of the new burners and put the call on speaker.
“Who is this?” Enzo snapped over the line.
“Someone looking to make a deal.” She waited, letting his brain wake up and register what she’d said. “If you want what I have on you, then you’ll do what I say.”
“Listen, sugar. You don’t realize who you’re speaking to. Nobody tells me what to do.”
“Welcome to your new reality. Let’s get something straight. I’m not your sugar, your babe or your sweetie.” She kept her tone sharp as a switchblade. “I’m your guardian angel. If you’re smart enough to want to stay out of prison, you’ll do exactly as I say.”
A breath of hesitation. “Go on.”
“You’re going to hit Big Bill where it’ll hurt. His brothels. Where he processes his drugs. You’re going to make it loud and ugly so Bill has to take notice. The strike happens at two thirty this afternoon. Don’t be early. Don’t be late.”
“Are you trying to start a war?” Enzo asked. “I haven’t been sanctioned to take that kind of action.”
“Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. Two thirty. Do this and Bill will no longer be a factor in New Orleans.”
* * *
THE BELLS OF the St. Louis Cathedral finished clanging, marking the hour. Noon.
With a red hat on and matching T-shirt, Garcia stood in Jackson Square next to the tree marked on the postcard. It had multiple trunks and wasn’t much taller than her five feet ten inches. The offbeat pulse of the French Quarter vibrated around the square.
Adrenaline was the only thing keeping her upright. She was exhausted from spending the night searching for Big Bill Walsh and Tommy Guillory, reviewing security footage of the casino and cross-referencing it with CCTV coverage. She’d only discerned that Walsh had sneaked out in the back of one of the delivery trucks at the casino. The normal schedule had been changed. Deliveries had been deliberately stacked to occur at the same time. The chaos had been too much for two agents to properly monitor.
Walsh and Guillory had slipped through their fingers. They were up to something and it wasn’t good. She knew it deep down.
Every chance she had, she’d slogged through more of the audio recording from the restaurant, but there were four more hours to go and she still had no idea where Big Bill was squirreled away.
Garcia scanned her surroundings. Her agents had been in place, rotating positions for the past two hours in various disguises. A homeless man, shuffling around the square. A psychic seated at a small card table on the fringe. Jensen and the agent from Hattiesburg were camped out on a bench fifty feet away, pretending to be a couple, chatting and drinking coffee. The one from Pascagoula pushed a baby stroller with a doll inside and the other from Gulfport was dressed as a jogger, earbuds in, hanging around the vicinity.
A shiver slid down her spine and she sensed she was being watched. And not by one of her own. That spark of awareness every woman got when unwanted eyes were on her.
It was Aiden Yazzie and Charlotte Killinger. Garcia sensed it in her bones.
Their prints came back first thing this morning with a positive ID on both, and she’d picked up the alert notification that had gone through the FQ Task Force app, placing them in this area yesterday afternoon. None of it was coincidence.
Dirty marshals on the lam contacting the FBI was a first. Maybe they wanted to work out a plea deal in exchange for the evidence they had. Better to make arrangements to be taken into custody unharmed than catch an accidental bullet on the run.
Garcia and her people were prepared to apprehend them without incident. She kept her head on a swivel, surveying the area.
They were out there somewhere and could be in a dozen different places blending in. The Washington Artillery Park. St. Louis Cathedral. Watching from a shop on St. Ann Street or St. Peter.
Garcia glanced at her watch. Two minutes past noon.
A cell phone rang, but it wasn’t hers. The ringtone was the song “Bad Boys” by Inner Circle. Loud and close and designed to draw attention.
She followed the sound, tracking it to the palm tree with a cluster of trunks that had been circled on the postcard. The ringing cell phone had been duct-taped to the inner side of one of the trunks in the bunch near the fronds. She hopped up and ripped it off.
There was a flash drive taped to the phone.