“If you want us to work with you, you need to calm down,” Joe said. When Cain couldn’t hold her anger anymore and reared back and coldcocked him, he bumped into three other cops standing around. His nose was oozing blood when he straightened up, and he was in an attack stance. “I know you’re upset, but if you try that again I’m taking you in and you can do your worrying in a cell.”
“You can kiss my—” Cain was about to completely lose control when her phone rang. “What?” she screamed. Just as quickly she calmed as she held the phone to her ear and said nothing. “Which house is it?” She hung up and strode around the accident scene, not trading any more conversation with Lou or Claire.
“Where’s she going?” Joe asked.
“It’s got to be the house or someplace close, because she’s walking,” Claire said. “All we have to do is wait and do what she thinks we do best—watch.”
Cain started toward Jarvis’s but met Muriel halfway there. The house Cain stopped at belonged to an elderly woman who’d been watering her plants and witnessed the black SUV slam into the car they were chasing, and what came after. Joe and Claire stood a good distance away as Cain talked to her, obviously asking questions. Then she shook hands with the woman and walked to the house.
“Think she’s going to stay in and not do anything?” Claire asked.
“I don’t see that happening, not unless she has a crystal ball in there that gives her all the answers. I’m not sure where we start searching. What I do know is that Agent Hicks will probably have a warrant out for Anthony and Juan before the hour’s up.”
“Let’s head to the van just in case.” Claire glanced back at the car Merrick had been driving one last time and shivered. The agents they’d left watching the house had tried to get to Emma before the two men had taken her, but Anthony had left Merrick’s car blocking the intersection from both directions.
“Wait a minute,” Joe said and started running down the street. “Shelby,” he said when he was inside and struggling to get his phone out.
“She stayed to sit on Anthony, but none of the guys said they saw her when this went down.”
“If I know Shelby, she wasn’t too far away,” Joe said and pressed the call button on his phone.
*
“Muriel,” Shelby said, “please don’t hang up.”
“This isn’t a good time, Shelby.” Muriel said her name since Cain was looking straight at her.
“I was tailing Anthony when it happened.”
“Where is he now?” Muriel asked, making Cain stand up. “You lost them? How in the hell did that happen?”
“I’d love to tell you that since I’m in the FBI I’m perfect, but I’m not. Once he made it into the neighborhood, Lionel and I didn’t have a lot of places to hide, so we had to hang back. Then the bastard left that car in the perfect place on the street, and we had to go around a few blocks and pray we could catch up, but we lost him.” Shelby sounded genuine in wanting to help.
“Ask her which way he was headed,” Cain said.
Muriel talked for a minute more, then hung up. “She lost them when they stopped at the house. From what she said, someone called the house and talked to Emma, pretending to be the gunsmith’s assistant, and told her the gun you guys ordered was finished. Before Shelby had a chance to figure out what he was up to and make it over here, Emma and Merrick had left and fallen into Anthony’s trap. It was Anthony who lured her out of the house, and with the moving going on, Merrick and Emma left by themselves.”
“Which way was he going when she last saw him?” Cain asked.
“Toward St. Charles, but then he must have doubled back down some of the side streets because there was no sign of him when she got to the avenue.”
Cain sat down and buried her fingers in her hair, wanting more than anything to cry. New Orleans might not be New York in size or population, but right now it could be Podunk USA and she wouldn’t have time to find Emma before Juan did something unspeakable to her.
“You can’t give up, think,” Muriel said.
“They could be anywhere by now, and no amount of thinking will make me pull the answer out of my ass.” Cain came close to hitting Muriel as well, but knew she was only trying to help. “It’s like Marie all over again. I travel with all this muscle and then leave the most vulnerable of my family unprotected. I should be fucking shot for letting this happen again.” She was on a roll as the weight of her failures started to pile on her shoulders, the weight of them threatening to swamp her. Then it came to her. Her greatest failures and how someone would use them to stick it to her and make it hurt as much as humanly possible.
“What?” Muriel said as Cain grabbed her and yanked her toward the back door.
“There’s no way he has the balls for that, but then it’s Anthony with his hand up Juan’s ass making his lips move,” Cain said. “Lou, get the men ready to roll and I want every cop out there covered, because we’re leaving and I don’t want an audience.”
Muriel’s phone rang again. “Yes?” she asked, and talked for a minute before disconnecting. “Shelby found the Tahoe, but there’s no sign of Anthony or Juan.”
“Give her a while and she’ll come up with the right answer, but I don’t have time to drop breadcrumbs for her.”
Five cars pulled out ahead of them and blocked the street from sidewalk to sidewalk as Lou turned in the opposite direction, the FBI vehicles hemmed in. Despite the blowing horns and sirens, the cars didn’t move until Lou and his passengers were out of sight.
“Where to, boss?” Lou asked.
“The house where we taught Danny the lesson on how to kill a goat. Get there fast but don’t get pulled over.”
“There’s no way he picked that house,” Muriel said. “How would he even know about it?”
“Juan wouldn’t, but Anthony had access to all the files that pertained to us and our business, including the dark, bloody chapters. He didn’t go with Juan because he had a burning desire to lead a life of crime—he did it because of me. Kyle’s a dead subject, but he wasn’t the only one working for the Bureau who hates me enough to bend the rules when it comes to dealing with me.”
Cain couldn’t control the bounce in her legs as she willed the car to go faster. “I had other plans for Anthony but that’s changed. When I find him I’m going to string him up and shove a cattle prod up his ass and turn it on. He wanted to watch me twitch for him when he brought me down, but he doesn’t know the meaning of the concept.”
Lou slammed his brakes on in front of the old abandoned shotgun house that now belonged to Cain. She’d bought it before she’d taken Danny there, wanting to watch the place fall in on itself eventually. It was, like she’d said, the site of her greatest failure, and as long as it stood it reminded her not to let her guard down.
In front, parked haphazardly on the grass, was a beat-up car whose hood was still warm to the touch. Lou ran slightly ahead of them with his gun drawn and kicked open the front door, and Cain saw Lionel standing in the first room. On the table where Marie had met her end, Emma was tied spread-eagle and gagged as Shelby tried to work the knots free on her hands.
“Emma,” Cain said, and slid next to the table. From her pocket she took Dalton’s switchblade and cut her hands free and pulled the gag away from her mouth. “Are you okay?” Her face was caked in blood and the wound on her head was still seeping. Lou finished cutting away her bindings so Cain could hold her.
“I’m okay, honey,” Emma said, but clutched Cain as if she’d disappear if she let go. “He didn’t get a chance…” her voice faded away, and Cain didn’t want to hear the end to that statement as much as Emma seemed not to want to say it. “I need to get out of here.”