From New York Times bestselling author Cindy Dees—

A captivating Code: Warrior SEALs romance

New Orleans detective Bastien LeBlanc is stumped by his new client, Carrie Price. The Navy SEAL must find Carrie’s kidnapped boss. Bass has never been a relationship kind of guy, so he’s floored by his undeniable attraction to Carrie. But can he trust her? Now all that can come between them are secrets from their pasts...and the all-too-real killer bearing down on them.

New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author CINDY DEES is the author of more than fifty novels. She draws upon her experience as a US Air Force pilot to write romantic suspense. She’s a two-time winner of the prestigious RITA® Award for romance fiction, a two-time winner of the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award for Romantic Suspense and an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Best Author Award nominee. She loves to hear from readers at www.cindydees.com.

Also by Cindy Dees

Code: Warrior SEALs

Undercover with a SEAL

Her Secret Spy

Her Mission with a SEAL

Navy SEAL Cop

The Prescott Bachelors

High-Stakes Bachelor

High-Stakes Playboy

Soldier’s Last Stand

The Spy’s Secret Family

Captain’s Call of Duty

Soldier’s Rescue Mission

Her Hero After Dark

Breathless Encounter

Flash of Death

Deadly Sight

A Billionaire’s Redemption

Take the Bait

Close Pursuit

Hot Intent

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Navy SEAL Cop

Cindy Dees

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07922-8

NAVY SEAL COP

© 2018 Cynthia Dees

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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“Are you real?” she whispered.

His mouth traveled across her jaw and nuzzled her neck in the tender spot just below her ear. “You tell me. Does this feel real?”

He nipped lightly at the junction of her neck and shoulder, and a jolt of lust shot through her loins. She squeezed her thighs together, which turned out to be a mistake, because she’d managed to catch the bulge of his erection between the tops of her thighs in the process, and Bass groaned in response.

She shocked herself by sliding her hand down the indentation of his spine to his impressive glutes and gave a tug, pulling his hips even closer to hers.

“Carrie,” he muttered warningly. “I’m a gentleman, but I have my limits.”

“I’m a lady, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like busting through limits.”

* * *

Code: Warrior SEALs—Meet these fierce warriors who take on the most dangerous secret missions around the world!

Dear Reader,

I’m so delighted to share with you the final installment of my Code: Warrior SEALs series. I have really enjoyed returning to my writing roots and creating stories for a team of smoking-hot Navy SEALs and the smart, sexy women who love them.

This series has been especially meaningful to me because writing it spanned my fight with and ultimate conquering of cancer. In a way, the bad guys my SEALs defeated became symbolic to me of my own health struggles and victory in the end.

Writing this series has served as a rich reminder to me that we all have our own uphill battles to face in life, and that reading books is a vital escape from those. I would like to think romance novels also remind us that, at the end of the day, love can overcome every obstacle placed before it.

From the bottom of my heart, I hope this book gives you a needed escape from whatever challenges you face in your life, and I hope it helps you remember love is, indeed, the most powerful force in the universe. Love conquers all. For real.

All my best and happy reading!

Warmly,

Cindy

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Dear Reader

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

Deserted alley in the middle of the night when all sensible people were in bed? Check.

Famously haunted and badly lit location? Check.

Ground fog swirling thickly enough to create a spooky-as-heck mood and obscure everything? Check.

Either she was ready to start shooting the next episode of the popular television show America’s Ghosts, or she was about to commit a homicide.

Of course, if the show’s host didn’t quit trying to tell her how to do her job filming him, there might just be a murder out here tonight.

Carrie Price stared through the viewfinder of her digital movie camera at her boss and renowned ghost hunter, Gary Hubbard. For tonight’s episode he’d picked Pirate’s Alley in New Orleans. The tourists and foot traffic were long gone, leaving just their footsteps to echo weirdly off the brick walls and their grotesquely elongated shadows to freak her out a little bit.

Bounded on one side by St. Anthony’s Garden behind a tall, wrought-iron fence and on the other side by darkened shops with tightly closed wooden doors, the narrow alley was only lit by widely spaced cast-iron streetlamps, forming blue haloes of light in drifts of ground fog. The old bricks glistened with moisture and a damp chill hung in the air. She wouldn’t have to apply any filters at all in post-production to achieve the show’s signature gothic vibe.

Gary walked backward down the alley, narrating a story about the possibly haunted buildings now standing on the site of the Calabozo, a prison that once housed pirate Jean Lafitte and much of his crew. Then Gary spun a tale of a lost pirate treasure rumored to be hidden somewhere in New Orleans, known only to the city’s ghosts. This season he’d branched out from strictly ghost hunting to include a treasure hunt in the show, a blatant publicity stunt to get America’s Ghosts renewed for another season. It had been a good move. His ratings had gone through the roof as he churned out a plot line of convincing ghosts to lead him to a mythical treasure hoard.

She let Gary back away from her far enough that he became little more than a silhouette within the mysterious fog, his melodic baritone voice a disembodied entity floating out of the mists of time. She should get a freaking Emmy for this camera work!

Just starting to move forward and rejoin Gary for some close-ups of him looking tense and then excited as tonight’s ghost “appeared” to him, she spied something dark moving out of the shadows behind Gary. Two dark somethings, in fact.

She jolted but kept the camera rolling. Gary hadn’t told her he’d hired anyone to stage an apparition appearance. But these actors looked terrific. Clothed in black from head to foot, they’d even covered their faces with some kind of black cloth, which gave them an otherworldly eeriness as they crept up behind Gary.

He turned just as the pair of “ghosts” reached him. Uncharacteristically, Gary threw up his hands and stumbled as if he was frightened of these apparitions. Oh, God. This was going to make for a great episode. She would cut to commercial just after he threw his hands up and cried out in surprise. All of America would be on the edge of its La-Z-Boys waiting to see what happened after three minutes of sponsored ads.

The ghosts grabbed Gary and commenced dragging him down the alley away from her. He struggled, but the apparitions easily overpowered him. What was he doing? He never interacted physically with ghosts. Sure, he’d been going for over-the-top supernatural elements this season, but was he seriously staging a ghost abduction? Why hadn’t he said something?

Whatever. It was his show. She was just the camerawoman.

Dammit, they were moving away from her too fast! Gary’s silver hair was part of the white fog now. She was live recording audio, or else she would have shouted at them to slow down or maybe even to reset and redo the take. She would keep the footage of that first jolt of surprise from Gary, though. It had looked totally authentic even though he wasn’t the world’s greatest actor. She often had to coach him through multiple takes to get a decent look of surprise out of him.

She moved forward more quickly, hurrying between the soaring walls of St. Louis Cathedral on her left, and on her right, the Cabildo, once the seat of government in Louisiana and now a museum. Gary and the two ghosts were only vague shapes in the fog ahead of her. She was losing them!

They disappeared from sight entirely. An eerie cry drifted back to her, echoing off the walls and seeming to come from all around her. Pure audio gold.

She rushed forward and stopped abruptly as she popped out of the alley. Jackson Square stretched away across the street from her, obscured by the fog. She panned her camera left and right down Chartres Street. Where did they go?

“Gary!” she called out.

Nothing.

“Gary!” she shouted. “Where are you?”

Still nothing.

“This isn’t funny. I need to reshoot your retreat into the fog. You guys moved too fast for me!”

What the heck? He still wasn’t answering her. She retraced her steps into the alley. Had he and the ghosts turned down Cabildo Alley? She reached the narrow side street and peered down it. Only wisps of fog moved in a slow-motion ballet, pirouetting up into the night. But there was no sign of three men pulling a sophomoric prank on her.

Had she moved past them inadvertently? She strode all the way back to the north end of the six-hundred-foot-long alley and the van she worked out of. No sign of Gary and his hilarious buddies.

Enough of this. She pulled out her cell phone and angrily hit the speed dial button for Gary. She tapped an irritated foot as she waited for him to pick up. The phone rang. And rang again. And kept on ringing until it kicked over to voice mail.

Huh. If his phone was working, why hadn’t he picked up? She walked from the show’s van all the way to the far end of the alley and back, looking for anywhere the three men might have disappeared to. Knowing Gary, he’d ducked into some bar and was hoisting a few cold ones with his actor pals, laughing his ass off at the great joke they’d played on her. Jerk.

If that was how he wanted to play this game, then he could find his own damned way back to the lodgings the show had rented for their month of shooting in New Orleans. They were scheduled to film eight episodes here, and tonight was number three. Normally, Gary reserved his more juvenile pranks for the last shooting day in any location. He knew his stupid stunts annoyed the heck out of her and she usually needed a week or two to cool down before they worked together again.

He was old enough to be her father, for crying out loud. It was horrendously unprofessional to pull crap like this on set. She called him every name she knew as she drove the van back to their rented house, a narrow, shabby affair with a one-car garage downstairs and two apartments upstairs.

She took satisfaction in stomping all the way to her third-floor apartment. Still mad, she downloaded tonight’s raw footage from her camera and played it back on the monitor of her computer.

On the larger screen, the alley looked even spookier than it had through her camera lens. Arms crossed in disgust, she watched the ghosts approach Gary, his turn, the look of surprise, and the brief struggle to follow. Hmm. Gary actually looked pretty darned convincing.

She backed up the tape and watched it again. Gary looked like he was genuinely trying to resist those guys.

A hum of alarm rumbled low in her gut. What if—

She played the tape a third time, and this time doubt poked her in the ribs. What if that was real? Not the ghosts, of course. In all the episodes of America’s Ghosts she’d filmed, she’d never seen an actual ghost. Modern special effects were a marvelous thing.

But what if the abduction had been real?

She watched the tape several more times, torn by indecision. It was entirely possible that Gary had staged it, either because he thought it would make for good television or simply because he got a huge kick out of scaring the hell out of her. He knew she didn’t believe in ghosts, and he was forever and always trying to convince her they were real by messing with her head.

If he really had been kidnapped, she needed to call the police right away. But if this was a joke and she called the cops, she would be embarrassed at best and charged with some crime at worst. And it wasn’t like she had any reason to trust police after her past.

She tried calling Gary several more times on his cell phone, but she was sent to voice mail every time. A glance at the clock told her it was after 2:00 a.m., the traditional time for most bars to close down for the night. That was finally what decided it for her. Something was wrong if he wasn’t answering her calls now.

Reluctantly, she Googled the phone number for the New Orleans Police Department. She hesitated, torn. If there was one thing in the world she hated worse than being jerked around by Gary, it was dealing with the police.

If only she had a friend on the show or knew someone who knew Gary. She could ask them to call the police and deal with all the questions and suspicion and recriminations. But no. She was even more antisocial than the ghosts Gary spent his life trying to capture.

Swearing under her breath, she punched in the stupid phone number.

“N’awlins Poh-lice. How may I help y’all?” a female voice drawled.

“I’d like to report a possible kidnapping.” She winced as soon as she heard the words spoken aloud. She’d lost her mind. There had been no kidnapping.

“I’ll connect y’all to the Missing Puh-sons Unit. One moment.”

A male voice came on the line. “Detective LeBlanc.” His voice, too, held a Southern drawl, but nothing like the previous cop’s.

“Uhh, hi. My name’s Carrie Price, and I think my boss may have been kidnapped.”

“Why’s that?”

“Umm, I filmed it.”

“When did this happen?” The detective’s voice was suddenly alert and interested.

“About two hours ago.”

“And you’re just now calling it in?”

Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap. She was in trouble for not calling sooner. “I thought it was a joke.” She added in a rush, “And honestly, it may still turn out to be a joke. But he’s not answering his phone, and the bars are shut down by now, aren’t they?”

“Most of them, yes.”

“I didn’t want to bother you, but I keep watching the video, and he seems genuinely surprised and I think he’s struggling for real against the ghosts.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Not actual ghosts, of course. Guys dressed up to look like ghosts.”

“Riigghht. Where did this possible kidnapping happen?”

“Pirate’s Alley.”

“Of course.” The detective’s voice was dry now. Skeptical.

“Look. Can you just watch the video I filmed and tell me what you think of it?”

A sigh. “Sure. Do you want to come into the station?”

“It might be better if you came to my place. I have a high-resolution computer monitor and editing software that can enhance images, play video in slow motion, and do stop-action views.”

“What’s the address?”

She rattled it off and he responded, “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

It turned out to be more like ten, and she worried the whole time that she was just playing into Gary’s hands by calling the police. He was going to stumble in tomorrow morning, hung over as heck, and laugh his head off at her for panicking. And then she would have some tall explaining to do to the stern-sounding police officer.

When the door buzzer sounded, Carrie jogged downstairs to let in the cop...and stopped cold at the sight of the detective standing there. He was tall and would be good-looking with those lean cheeks and chiseled jaw if he wasn’t also so dad-blamed scary looking. That stern frown of his made her want to confess to every petty wrong she’d ever committed. He wore civilian clothes, which surprised her, but he flashed his badge as she peered out the peephole.

She threw open the door and registered that he was close to a foot taller than her. She was only five foot three, so he wasn’t a giant, but still. His waist was lean and his shoulders well-defined. Perhaps what struck her the most, though, were his piercing blue eyes. They were hard, exuding no-nonsense focus. Oh, God. He was everything she feared and loathed about police, and men in general.

“I’m Carrie Price. Thanks for coming.” She held out her hand, unsure of how to act around a police officer who wasn’t eyeing her with suspicion and wishing she wasn’t making accusations of the most powerful man in town.

This cop briefly looked surprised, but then took her hand in his. It was warm. Firm. A thick callus at the base of his thumb abraded her skin. His fingers swallowed hers up, intimidating as heck. Sometimes she really hated being as tiny as she was.

“Bastien LeBlanc.” In person, his Acadian drawl was more pronounced than over the phone.

She nodded, tongue-tied, and settled for turning and heading upstairs. She was vividly aware of him behind her, with a critical view of her rear end. Not that her behind was anything to write home about. She enjoyed running and tried to keep reasonably toned, but everything about her was small in scale. She could never compete with tall, voluptuous women with miles of curves.

Thankfully, she reached the third floor without falling on her face or otherwise humiliating herself. “Computer’s over here.” She headed for the kitchen table, which she had converted to a workspace. “Watch out for the power cords,” she murmured, stepping over an orange extension cord.

“Roger,” the scary detective replied.

That sounded more military than law enforcement. But then, he took the chair she indicated, and she reached over his shoulder to cue up the tape—and the scent of him knocked all rational thought right out of her head. He smelled like...warmth. His cologne was subtle and spicy and entirely edible. It totally didn’t mesh in her mind with the frowning, badass cop.

“I’m the camera operator for a TV show called America’s Ghosts, hosted by Gary Hubbard. I shot this footage of him earlier tonight.”

Gary’s deep voice filled the awkward silence and his image walked backward down the alley onscreen. She watched Detective LeBlanc from behind without comment, letting him form his own first impression.

The two men in black appeared, Gary turned around, and the men dragged him away. The whole incident took less than thirty seconds to play.

“Again,” the detective ordered, his eyes never leaving the screen.

She leaned forward to restart the footage, and her arm brushed against his, her face coming dangerously close to his ear. She jumped, as alarmed as if she’d poked a bear. She might not take crap from Gary, but cops turned her into a terrified teen all over again.

While the detective watched the video, she furtively watched him, noting the tiny frown of concentration, and the way muscles in his jaw rippled as his face tensed. He must be watching the abduction bit now.

He glanced up and caught her blatantly scoping him out. She looked away hastily, her heart racing as if she’d just sprinted a mile. She felt her cheeks heating up. Sheesh, this man made her uncomfortable.

“You said you can do stop-action on this machine?”

“Yes.”

“I need you to run the last part of the video, where the assailants grab Mr. Hubbard, frame by frame.”

She almost said, “Yes, sir,” but managed to mumble, “Coming up,” instead. She had to reach past him again to operate her mouse, and her left breast brushed his right arm by accident. She sucked in a sharp breath and kept her horrified gaze locked on the computer screen. Thankfully, he just leaned forward to study the screen closely as she advanced the video one frame at a time, each frame progressing by one forty-eighth of a second.

“There. Stop,” LeBlanc bit out, startling her. She stopped the video and stared at the image. The two black figures had a hold of Gary and appeared to be goose-stepping him away from her. She’d already seen it a dozen times.

LeBlanc poked at the screen. “Look at how this one is holding Mr. Hubbard’s hand. He’s twisting your boss’s hand behind his back and forcing his forearm upward with the hold.”

“And that’s significant why?” she asked.

“It’s a technique military members are taught for subduing prisoners.”

She frowned. “Would police use the same grip?”

He grinned up at her briefly, and she gasped inwardly as his smile lit up the dingy apartment. “Naw. Cops use handcuffs.”

“I’ll bet that’s what you say to all the girls,” she shot back. The smart remark was out of her mouth before she could stop it. “Oh, crap. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that—”

“No worries. And no, that’s not in my usual repertoire of pickup lines.”

“You have a repertoire?” Darn it, she’d done it again! This guy was a cop, for crying out loud. Lord, he threw her off balance.

His mouth twitched, hopefully with humor. Great. At best, he thought she was ridiculous. At worst, he thought she was an annoying twit. Not that she could blame him. She was a hot mess tonight.

Frantic to distract him, she mumbled, “What does it mean that one of his captors used some special grip on him?”

The detective’s muscular shoulder lifted in a shrug. “It’s a detail we can use to help identify the assailants.”

“You think that was a real abduction then?” she blurted.

“I do.”

Panic erupted in her belly and promptly tried to claw its way out of her throat. Suddenly she felt light-headed and faintly nauseated. “But who...?” she gasped. “Why?”

The detective surged to his feet, looming over her. He grasped her upper arms in his powerful hands and guided her over to the sofa, where he sat her down. Which was probably wise. The room spun around her and lights danced before her eyes.

“Take a deep breath, Miss Price. Hold it for one, two, three. Now exhale slowly. Three. Two. One.”

He talked her through several more breaths, and they helped her brain engage again. Still. She couldn’t seem to keep her hands from fidgeting uncontrollably. She plucked at the seam in her jeans and then wrung her hands and tugged at her T-shirt. He sat down beside her and his hands closed over hers as she stared at him in anguish.

His gaze wasn’t the least bit gentle. Thank God. She would’ve burst into tears then and there. But maybe that was a hint of sympathy lurking at the back of his deep blue eyes. Huh. The tough guy might just be human beneath that hard façade.

She wanted to crawl into bed, pull the covers up over her head, and curl up in a little ball with Mr. Paddles, her stuffed turtle. Which was weird if she stopped to think about it. She didn’t revert to little girl behaviors, well, pretty much ever. Not since she’d run away from home all those years ago. She’d been barely more than a child then.

The detective spoke not exactly gently, but less harshly than before. “The New Orleans Police will do everything we can to find Mr. Hubbard as quickly as possible.”

“You’re sure it’s not a prank?” she asked in a small voice.

“I don’t think it is. Mr. Hubbard’s body language in the video is consistent with genuine surprise and fear as he’s being dragged away.”

“I followed them down the alley. I couldn’t run because the camera would jostle too much, but I walked at a good clip. It was under a minute until I reached the end of the alley. Where could they have gone in so little time? God, I’m such an idiot—” She broke off as it dawned on her she was babbling.

The detective snorted. “With a minute’s head start, they could have thrown your boss into a vehicle and driven away without you ever seeing their taillights.”

Her breathing started to speed up again, and the detective looked her in the eye, took a deep breath, held it, and then released it slowly. Staring at him, she followed along, matching her breaths to his. It was an intimate thing, breathing in concert with him. Their gazes locked—his focused and calm, and hers probably completely freaked out.

In any other circumstances, she would be wildly attracted to a man who looked like him. But as it was, she could hardly keep the panic at bay. And it wasn’t just panic over Gary. Merely being in the presence of this man scared the heck out of her. And not only because he was a cop.

“Why Gary?”

“I don’t know why Mr. Hubbard was a target,” he said reasonably. “You tell me. Was he in any trouble? Did he have any enemies?”

She stared up at him in dismay. They were really going to do this? He was going to question her for real? Lord, she hated questions from police.

Her panic galloped away from her then, and her entire body shook with it. She’d been questioned like this once before, and look how that had turned out. Her best friend had died. Because of her. Because she’d gone to the police. Had she done it again? Had she just gotten Gary killed, too?

Chapter 2

Bastien stared down at the frightened young woman before him. She was a tiny little thing. And right now, scared out of her mind, she looked about twelve years old. Scratch that. She was too hot ever to be mistaken for a child. She was petite but she had curves in all the right places. Her hair was brown with gold streaks and currently pulled into a high ponytail that hung long and smooth down her back. Her eyes were big and dark, and her skin had a beautiful olive undertone. He’d place her ancestry as at least partially Mediterranean.

She was the kind of woman a man looked at twice. Maybe had some dirty dreams about. Had he met her in any other setting—at a bar or with a mutual acquaintance—he’d have done his damnedest to charm her into his bed.

Did she realize she was wringing her hands again? He really shouldn’t stop her—they were a useful body language tell—but damned if he could stop himself from reaching out to take her hands once more, rescuing her reddened fingers from death by squeezing.

Thing was, he was no rookie. He knew better than to fall into the whole comfort-the-family-member thing. It wasn’t his job and could end up being a giant distraction when it came to finding missing persons. He had become a cop to solve problems. To use his military training to catch bad guys. When he was on duty, he was all about the job. Put the pieces together. Solve the crime. Move on to the next case. He did his best to stay away from all the messy human emotions that came with his line of work. They were nothing but a distraction.

However, he wasn’t entirely without basic human decency. And that forced him to feel at least a little sympathy for this young woman in the face of her fear. Still, this was work, and it was not his job to pat her hand and say, “There, there.” It was his job to find the guy in the video.

And like it or not, he was sitting in front of his only currently identified suspect. She wasn’t much of a suspect as they went. After all, she’d come forward to the police with direct video evidence of the crime. But, he couldn’t rule her out, either. She was a known close associate of the missing person.

He prompted her, “Can you think of anyone who would want to do Mr. Hubbard harm?”

“That’s a complicated question where Gary Hubbard is concerned,” she finally offered up.

“Why’s that?”

A sigh. “His television show has devoted fans and equally devoted haters. There’s a whole group on social media devoted to debunking his ghost sightings.”

Seriously? Ghosts? He schooled his face to give away nothing and nodded encouragingly.

Another sigh from the young woman. “Gary has a big personality. He likes to play jokes on people and delights in poking at people’s most cherished beliefs. He’s a bit of a curmudgeon in that regard.”

“Give me an example.”

“He tries to refute generally accepted versions of history using communication with ghosts to dispute commonly held understanding of famous historic events. He did a series of shows about the founding fathers and talked to ghosts of their slaves to prove what a good deal it was to be one of their slaves. Gary got hundreds of death threats over those shows.”

“When did these episodes air?”

“At the end of his first season, six years ago. The public outcry was what got his show renewed, in fact.”

Damn. It was old history, then. That didn’t sound like a motive now for kidnapping and possibly worse. But he asked nonetheless, “What’s the most recent scandal he’s stirred up?”

“Well, this season, he’s working on a treasure hunt having to do with the last French governor of Louisiana in 1803. The guy supposedly worked for Napoleon, but Gary got it in his head that this guy, Pierre Clément deLaussat, was a secret French royalist.”

Still didn’t sound like motive for kidnapping or worse. What was he missing? He prompted, “And this is controversial because...”

“Gary claims to have been approached by the ghost of deLaussat’s mistress, who told him deLaussat was in possession of a great royal French secret that he hid in New Orleans.”

“Are you kidding me?” Bastien blurted.

The young woman winced. “I wish I were.”

“I hardly think the reputation of some guy who lived in the early 1800s is worth committing a felony over.”

“You would think, wouldn’t you?” she responded. “But Gary’s detractors get wired way tight when he attempts to challenge history.”

“If he’s using conversations with ghosts as his rationale, I can see why they get up in arms.”

She looked up at him, her chocolate eyes worried. “Enough to harm him?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? He summarized: “So far, all we know is that two guys grabbed him and took him away from Pirate’s Alley. Maybe they wanted to get more information from him. Or hell, I don’t know, maybe they wanted him to perform a séance.”

She snorted. “Gary wouldn’t know how to do a real séance if a ghost jumped up and bit him in the butt.”

“Duly noted,” he replied dryly.

Her gaze snapped to his, and a moment of humor shone in her eyes. It lit her entire face, transforming her into a fey creature for an instant. Whoa. He could almost believe in ghosts and otherworldly beings when she looked at him like that.

Kidnapping. Investigation. Ask questions. He dragged his mind back to business and managed to come up with, “You said he’s on a treasure hunt. For what? How valuable is it? Maybe someone snatched Hubbard to get at a rich treasure.”

“I don’t know what the treasure is. He won’t say. He’s releasing clues in each show this season and plans to do a big reveal in the season finale.”

Bastien frowned. “How can you not know? Aren’t you working closely with him on the television show?”

“You’d think.” Bastien detected a hint of bitterness in her voice. So. She wasn’t happy that the boss was keeping secrets from her. Unhappy enough to provide a motive for kidnapping, maybe?

He asked, “Has Mr. Hubbard received any recent threats? Maybe letters or emails?”

“I don’t know. He handles his own correspondence. I’m just the cameraperson, and I do the first post-shoot editing.”

Did that mean she was responsible for dubbing in ghosts? He was tempted to ask, but he wasn’t here to argue with a ghost hunter over the existence of ghosts. “Do you have access to Mr. Hubbard’s email account?”

“No.”

“Too bad. Normally, we have to wait until a subject has been missing for forty-eight hours before we can use police resources to begin searching for him.”

She frowned. “I might be able to figure out his password. He’s not the most creative or computer-savvy guy on the planet.”

“It would be best if you leave his computer alone for now.” Spotting the stubborn look that entered her eyes, he added, “If you do get into his account, give me a call immediately.”

She nodded, a frankly adorable frown puckering her brow. And, she was back to looking like a nymphette. He would not look at her chest. At a glance it wasn’t anything to write home about, but at a second glance, she was nicely endowed in proportion to her overall smallness. Dammit, he respected women, and he was not going to turn this interview into a leering session.

“Can you think of anything else that might help me find Mr. Hubbard?”

“He’s a big beer drinker. Tends to hang out at microbreweries and in bars that serve artisanal beers.”

That gave him a place to start. He could canvas the local bars. “Do you have a picture of Mr. Hubbard that I could have?”

“Of course.” She moved over to the kitchen sink and lifted out a three-ring binder that she carried back to the sofa.

“You don’t cook much?” he asked.

“What?” She glanced back at the sink and down at the binder. “Oh. No. I destroyed a pan once while trying to hard-boil eggs. And it was stainless steel.”

“Impressive.”

“Did you know eggs actually blow up?” she asked indignantly.

He bit back a snort of humor. “Can’t say I did.”

She sat down next to him, and he was abruptly aware again of how small she was. Her face was fine-boned and slightly heart-shaped, vaguely elfin in appearance and utterly lovely. “They make a god-awful mess when they do. Yolk goes everywhere, and it dries on stuff like paint.”

His lips twitched in humor as she rifled through the binder.

“These are publicity photos he sends to fans. Would this work?” She pulled out an eight-by-eleven glossy head shot of Gary Hubbard.

He studied the professional picture critically. “That’s arguably the best photo I’ve ever seen of a missing person. Hell, it’s practically life-sized.”

She smiled back at him. “Let’s just say Gary is not a modest man and leave it at that.”

“Tell me more about him.”

“He’s been a television personality for nearly thirty years. He hosted a string of failed game shows. Tried a talk show, but he wouldn’t shut up and let his guests talk. That lasted only half a season. Then he landed the ghost-hunting gig. He’s been doing America’s Ghosts for six years.”

“Wife? Kids? Business partners?”

“No to all three. He likes to be in control. He’s got a crew back in New York, and they research locations, set up shoots, and help with post-production work, but on the road, it’s just him and me.”

That sent warning flags up in his mind. He asked, “How would you describe your relationship? Just coworkers? Friends? More?” He watched closely for tells of a lie. She was a lot younger than Hubbard and might not want to admit to an affair if there was one.

She startled him by laughing in genuine amusement at the question. “Me and Gary? Together? That’s hilarious. No, it’s a little sick, actually. We’re definitely not more than friends and coworkers. Sheesh. He’s older than my father.”

Bastien was surprised by the relief that flooded his gut. It was none of his business who she slept with. Still. He was glad she wasn’t involved with her boss.

“How did you come to be associated with the show? Were you assigned to it by the network?”

“No. Gary hired me. He told his bosses he wanted to work with me, and they reviewed my portfolio and agreed to hire me.”

Huh. So she owed her job to him. Did that reduce her viability as a suspect? Or perhaps she resented him because of it. Aloud, he asked, “What all do you do for Mr. Hubbard...as his coworker?”

“I film the show and direct him from behind the camera. Then he and I do the initial post-production editing and cleanup.”

She continued, “We shoot anywhere from three to ten episodes in a single location, and then we usually return to New York. The editor there cuts together the shows and Gary records any voice-overs they require.”

“How long have you two been in New Orleans?”

“About two weeks. We spent a week checking out spots to film, and the plan was to spend about three weeks filming for the show.”

How had this glorious creature been in his city for two weeks without him knowing about her? His radar for beautiful women must be slipping. Usually he was the first to know and the first to make a move. Not that he was sleezy about it. He liked women, and they liked him. He just didn’t like to get too deeply involved with any one woman.

Consciously suppressing his natural tendency to turn on the charm with the lovely Miss Price, Bastien asked, “While you were scouting locations, what did Mr. Hubbard say about this supposed treasure he’s tracking?”

“Not a word. He’s keeping whatever he knows about it completely to himself.”

Too bad. A rich treasure would certainly constitute a motive for kidnapping or worse. “Has Mr. Hubbard suggested on the show that the treasure is valuable?”

“This season hasn’t aired on television yet. But in the episodes we’ve already shot, he has indicated that the treasure is priceless.”

“Who all has seen the footage shot so far?”

“Gary, me and the production crew in New York.”

“I’ll need names of everyone on the crew.”

“Umm, okay. I can get that for you in the morning. I think I know everyone, but I may be missing someone who has access to the footage.”

He nodded and then said, “So you’ll be in town a few more weeks?”

“Assuming Gary shows up soon and we can resume filming on schedule.”

“What if he doesn’t show up?” he responded casually.

Horror filled her eyes, and then tears followed. He saw a lot of tears in his line of work and had become hardened to them long ago. But this woman’s unshed tears brimming in her stricken eyes twisted his gut painfully. He bit back an urge to tell her not to worry. That he would find her boss for her and bring him back to her. But he knew better than to make promises he couldn’t necessarily keep.

She choked out between sobbing gasps of air, “Gary’s like a father to me. He can be a pain in the butt, but he has a good heart, and he looked out for me when I needed it—”

She broke off. An interesting choice of words. Had she been in some kind of trouble that Hubbard rescued her from?

On the weekends, Bastien pulled reserve duty in a Navy SEAL unit, and his teammates often accused him of being a suspicious bastard. He assured them it was merely his cop’s instinct. And right now, that instinct was firing on all cylinders. There was a story behind this young woman. He would bet his police badge and his Budweiser—his SEAL insignia pin—that she had secrets to hide.

He asked, “Have you and Mr. Hubbard had any disagreements recently? Any falling-outs?”

She answered without hesitation, “We fight all the time. Gary always thinks he knows better than me how to stage and film the show. But he has no artist’s eye whatsoever, not to mention no training as a camera operator.”

Hmm. No evasion in her answer, but an admission of friction. He couldn’t take her off the suspect list yet. Too bad. His gut feeling was that she was not part of the kidnapping plot. But he only trusted gut feelings when they involved guns pointed at him or bad guys sneaking up behind him. In the world of law enforcement, it was all about evidence and cold, hard facts. Which was, of course, part of the allure of it to him. No need for messy things like emotions and relationships.

He stood up and fished a business card out of his wallet. “Here’s my phone number. Call me if Mr. Hubbard shows up or contacts you. If you think of anything else that might help me locate him, call me any time, day or night.”

“When do you sleep?” she asked.

One corner of his mouth curled sardonically. “I don’t.”

“You’re a cyborg, then?”

“Something like that.” He had to give her credit. She had a quick wit. When she wasn’t hiding things or scared silly, she was probably an entertaining person to be around. “Don’t worry about waking me up. If you hear from him or think of something, call me right away. Time is the enemy in missing persons cases.”

She nodded her understanding and reached for his card. Their fingertips brushed and he caught her fast, light inhalation. Attracted to him, was she? Aww, baby. It’s totally mutual.

An urge to reach out, cup the sweet curve of her cheek in his hand, to lean down and brush those berry lips with his, to whisper in her ear that he would make everything all right, nearly overcame him.

Damn, she was messing with his head! It must be the fact that he couldn’t have her that was making her so completely irresistible. But he had a hard rule about not dating on the job, and he wasn’t about to break it. Not for her. Not for any woman.

Not that he actually dated much at all. What with working long hours as a cop and longer hours on the weekends training SEALs, he didn’t exactly have a thriving social life. Throw in the occasional deployment with the SEALs where he could be gone anywhere from a few days to weeks, and it wasn’t worth the effort to try to sustain relationships in between the demands of his twin careers.

He supposed he technically could be accused of serial dating a long string of women. But he didn’t engage in actual relationships with any of them. At best, a few of them rose to the status of friends with benefits. But he’d learned a long time ago never to give away his heart to anyone. He’d seen the devastation love wrought, and he wanted no part of it.

He followed Carrie out of her apartment and down to the second-floor landing. “Who lives in this apartment?” he asked, pointing at the locked door there.

“Gary. The show’s producer rented this whole building for the month we’ll be in town.”

“Do you have a key to his place?”

“I do. He’s forever misplacing his keys and locking himself out, so I’m the designated spare key lady.”

Did she realize that having access to his home made her more of a suspect? It connoted more of a personal connection between them than she’d admitted to so far. The vast majority of abductions, and murders for that matter, were committed by people close to the victim.

He waited while she fumbled around in her fanny pack and found the spare key to Gary’s apartment.

She reached out to unlock the door and he forestalled her, grabbing her wrist quickly and saying sharply, “Let me do that.”

“Why?”

“It’s unlawful trespassing for you to enter without the owner’s permission. I can legally enter to search the premises in an emergency. And given that we have film of the man being abducted by force, I’d say that qualifies.”

In reality, he didn’t want her tampering with any evidence that might incriminate her. Not to mention he wanted to make sure there were no hostiles lurking in the abducted victim’s home.

He stepped in front of her and eased the key into the lock. He turned the knob silently and pushed the door open by slow degrees. No movement on the other side, no sound. No reaction at all. He eased the door further open.

He gestured for Carrie to stay back and slipped inside the darkened apartment, identical in layout to the one upstairs.

Hubbard’s apartment smelled like beer and stale pizza and was beyond slovenly. The place looked like it had been tossed. Seat cushions were on the floor, the contents of drawers spilled out, and everything thrown off the shelves. Television was still here, so not a robbery.

If the place had been searched, it had been a hasty search. A quick once-through looking for something specific. Had whoever tossed it found what they were looking for? It did look like the whole place had been searched, which led him to believe the searcher had not found what he sought.

He hadn’t sensed any stress at all in Carrie when she handed over the key. His gut was at it again, proclaiming loudly that she hadn’t had anything to do with this ransacking. Shut up, gut.

It took him under a minute to clear the entire apartment, with just a main room, bedroom and bathroom to check out. It was empty.

He didn’t spot any clothing, personal items or toiletries to indicate that Miss Price spent any time down here. Again, relief flowed through him. Dammit. He lectured himself forcefully. Not. His. Business.

He moved back to the entry door and switched on the lights. “He’s not home.”

“May I come in?”

“No. I don’t want you to disturb the crime scene.”

“Crime scene—” She rounded the corner to stand in the doorway and stared inside in dismay. “What happened? It looks like a tornado hit.”

“I’d say someone searched the place. Could Mr. Hubbard have done this, or was it likely an intruder?”

“He’s a slob, but he’s not this bad.”

“From where you’re standing, can you identify any of your employer’s possessions that are missing?”

She looked around helplessly. “I don’t know.”

“Okay. I’m coming out and I’ll seal the door until the crime scene guys can get over here and have a look at the place. I’m going to ask them to lift fingerprints and do an inventory of possessions. Maybe they can identify who did this. It’s likely whoever searched this place was involved in Mr. Hubbard’s disappearance.”

He jogged down to his car and brought back supplies. He pasted a red paper seal to the door and frame, so if anyone opened the door they would break the seal. Then he put a big yellow X of Crime Scene Do Not Cross tape over the entire entrance.

“I’m the only other person who lives in this building,” she commented after he was done. “You could have just told me not to go inside.”

Yes, but she was a suspect. He shrugged. “Gotta follow procedure.”

She walked him down to the street-level exit. He turned to face her and her eyes were big and dark with worry, and maybe fear.

His gut twisted at the sight of her looking so lost and vulnerable, and he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “Try to get at least a little sleep. You will need stamina over the next few days if Mr. Hubbard has, indeed, been kidnapped.”

If possible, her eyes got even bigger and more worried looking.

“Call me if you hear anything at all tonight or if you remember something that might help me find your boss. Hell, call me if you’re scared and can’t sleep.”

She nodded doubtfully.

“Promise?”

“I guess.”

“Promise me,” he repeated. He was making a mistake, to press her like this. He was skirting dangerously close to forming a personal connection with her.

“All right. I promise.”

Why in the hell he’d felt compelled to extract that promise from her, he hadn’t the slightest idea. And frankly, he had no desire to examine the impulse any more closely. There was something about her that made him want to protect her.

Weird. He’d never lived to protect women before. In fact, the women he worked with—attached as support staff to his SEAL unit—were badass in the extreme and fully capable of protecting themselves. They would laugh their heads off at him going all protect-the-little-lady on a crime suspect. Even if she was both little and a lady.

He desperately hoped she was actually a damsel-in-distress. But he feared Carrie Price was simply a talented con artist. God knew, he had plenty of experience with those.

Chapter 3

Carrie tried to sleep, but every time she dozed off she dreamed of men in black whisking her away and carrying her down into darkness cold enough to freeze her lungs. She woke up gasping for air, so terrified she pulled the covers all the way over her head and cowered under the blankets, clutching her stuffed turtle close like she had when she was a frightened child.

As dawn crept around the flimsy curtains and the city outside her window began to wake, she gave up on sleeping. She called Gary’s phone, and when there was no answer, she went downstairs to check the seals on his door. Please be home. Please be home.

The red seal was still in place, the yellow crime scene tape undisturbed.

Damn.

Real dread for Gary’s safety roared through her, and her legs barely supported her weight as she fought the urge to cry. This was her fault. If she’d realized the abduction was real she could have run forward, fought the attackers. Two on two, Gary might have stood a chance of escaping.

Who was she kidding? She barely weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet and didn’t know the first thing about self-defense. And Gary was no spring chicken. Still. There had to have been something she could have done.

Heart heavy, she went upstairs and called the television show’s executive producer. It was barely 7:00 a.m. in New York and the guy didn’t pick up, so she left an urgent message that Gary was missing and appeared to have been kidnapped.

She played the videotape again, unable to watch it now without spotting that distinctive twist and lift move put on Gary’s hand behind his back. She couldn’t stop watching the tape. Over and over, she watched the black shapes appear, move in behind Gary, grab him, and rush away into the night. But no matter how many times she watched it, the outcome was the same. Gary was gone.

There had to be something useful she could do to find him or at least prove he was indeed missing.

Had he received threats he hadn’t told her about? He had seemed distracted ever since they’d arrived in New Orleans. But she had put it down to his obsession with finding his lost treasure and proving that the last governor of Louisiana had been no friend of Napoleon’s.

When critics lambasted him online for perpetrating a giant historical hoax, he’d muttered a few cryptic comments about having tangible proof this time. A few nights ago, when he’d come home late, more drunk than not, he’d even mumbled about being close to finding an incredible treasure while she’d taken off his shoes and tucked him into his bed.

What did you get yourself mixed up in, Gary?

She was choking down some dry toast when it belatedly dawned on her that Gary had put a duffel bag in their van yesterday as they’d left for the Pirate’s Alley shoot. She raced downstairs to the garage and threw open the back of the van.

Opening the drab olive canvas duffel, she spied Gary’s laptop sitting on top of a pile of his filming clothes—flowing artist’s smock shirts with open collars that he thought were appropriate for a master ghost hunter. Personally, she thought they made him look like an old hippie.

She grabbed the laptop and headed back upstairs to try to break into it. Detective LeBlanc might have told her to leave it alone, but she had to do something to find her boss. She couldn’t just sit back and wait for two days until the police got around to declaring him missing.

A computer hacker she was not. However, she knew Gary pretty well, and she doubted he was the kind of guy to get too creative with his passwords. How hard could it be to figure it out? She tried a dozen combinations of his birthday, address, and the name of his childhood pet, a mangy mutt he still talked about, forty years later.

Not that she could fault him for over-loving his dog. Her best friend, Shelly Baker, had often declared that the only reason she didn’t kill herself was because her cat would miss her too much. If a pet was a kid’s reason to live and sole source of love, Carrie supposed that was better than no love at all.

Her own parents and her older brother had been okay. They’d been average people with average expectations of her. As long as she passed her classes and didn’t get into trouble, they didn’t pay much attention to her comings and goings.

She’d tried to talk to them about Shelly when things had started getting bad at her friend’s house, but they’d told her to keep her nose out of it and that how Shelly’s mom and stepdad raised her wasn’t anyone else’s business.

She added Gary’s agent’s name to the mix of possible password combinations, and on about the sixth try, his computer popped open.

Yaaasss! She fist pumped the air.

The past several days’ worth of emails didn’t yield anything that screamed of threats from a potential kidnapper. Gary got several hundred emails a day, though, and it was going to take a while to read through his entire backlog of emails and deleted messages.

She pulled out her cell phone and Detective Leblanc’s business card. Reluctance roared through her. He was an authority figure and scary to boot. But he’d been adamant that she call him if she found anything new and that he would be mad at her if she didn’t call. It wasn’t even 8:00 a.m., though, and he’d been at her place until after three. Maybe she should let him sleep?

No. He’d said to call any time.

She dialed the number before she could second-guess herself.

“Detective LeBlanc.” He sounded alert and not half dead like she would if she were woken from a deep sleep.

“It’s Carrie Price. I found Gary’s computer and figured out his password. I’m into his email.”

“I told you to stay out of his place.”

“His laptop wasn’t in his apartment. It was in our van.”

“And you failed to mention this to me last night why?”

Crud. The detective sounded pissed. “I forgot,” she confessed. “I didn’t remember that Gary had put a duffel bag in the van yesterday until I was eating breakfast this morning.”

“I need you to bring the laptop down to the station immediately.”

She wasn’t sure how she felt about the prospect of seeing the hot detective again. Particularly at a police station full of cops. He was definitely pretty to look at. But. Cops. No bueno.

“Umm, okay,” she managed to mumble.

“I’ll meet you there in half an hour,” he declared.

She wrote down the address he gave her and left the house right away. She still didn’t have the knack of navigating New Orleans’s copious one-way streets, back alleys, dead ends, and random pedestrian-only streets thrown in for fun. Parking turned out to be a challenge, as well. But, she found a spot a block away, ran for the police station and, exactly thirty minutes after her call, careened into the precinct, red-faced and breathing hard. Her cotton blouse clung to her back.

“Can I help you?” a cop behind a tall desk asked her.

“I’m here to meet with Detective LeBlanc.”

“Name?”

“Carrie Price. He’s expecting me.”

“Elevator to the second floor, turn right when you get out, last door on the left at the end of the hall.”

She more or less caught her breath in the elevator, and then lost it again when she realized she was about to see the hot detective who smelled like heaven.

The panic ultimately won out, erasing all thoughts of hot guys from her mind. Gary was definitely in big trouble. He never spent the whole night out. He always crawled home, his back teeth awash in beer, and slept it off, snoring like a chainsaw. If she’d had any doubt last night about the authenticity of his kidnapping, that doubt was fully erased this morning.

She stepped into a loud, messy squad room with a dozen desks in it, all of them piled high with papers and manila folders. Men and women talked on phones or talked to each other, and zydeco music twanged from a low-quality radio somewhere.

A few men spotted her and eyed her up and down while she scanned the room nervously for Detective LeBlanc. She didn’t see him, however.

But then a big hand cupped her elbow from behind and she jumped about a foot in the air.

“Easy, darlin’. It’s just me,” a familiar voice drawled behind her. Detective LeBlanc. “Let’s go find ourselves a nice, quiet spot where we can talk without these guys ogling you like a bunch of Neanderthals.”

The tone in his voice was fond. Affectionate, even. He liked his coworkers. Huh. So ice didn’t run in his veins, after all. It was one of the first signs of genuine humanity she’d seen in him, other than his reluctant flashes of compassion last night.

Shouts and insults came back at LeBlanc in response to his remark, and he responded in kind. Then he shook his head, grinning, and guided her out of the squad room.

She liked this more relaxed version of the good detective, although she didn’t know whether to be complimented or embarrassed that he’d pulled her away from the other officers.

He escorted her down the hall and opened an unmarked door, poked his head in, then stood back to open it fully for her. He slid a plastic sign that said In Use into a slot on the door, and ushered her inside.

It smelled like a urinal that had been cleaned with scented bleach in a failed effort to mask the underlying stench. The detective pulled out a metal chair for her and held it while she sat down. A metal bar stretched across the table in front of her. LeBlanc sat opposite her, and she set the computer on the table.

“What’s that for?” she asked, gesturing at the bar.

“We handcuff violent suspects to it.”

Oh, crap. Was she a suspect? Is that why he’d brought her into what was clearly some sort of interrogation room? It even had the big glass mirror on the wall that everyone knew was a one-way window. She glanced up, and sure enough, there was a camera in the corner near the ceiling.

“Why don’t you show me the computer?” LeBlanc suggested.

Right. Gary’s laptop. She opened the screen and quickly typed in the password. Then she handed the device over to him. He took it without comment and spent the next few minutes browsing through it. She thought she was going to explode with impatience before he finally looked up at her again. Surely there was some sort of clue on it that a detective could spot right away. They had to find Gary before something bad happened to him.

“You hungry?” he asked.

Food? He could think of food at a time like this? Heck, she could hardly remember to breathe. “Excuse me?” she mumbled.

“Are you hungry? You know. Desirous of partaking in food to break one’s fast or to satiate hunger pains?”

She rolled her eyes at him, and then took personal inventory. “I guess I could eat.” She’d forgotten to do so last night after she’d gotten home, and a half slice of dry toast this morning hadn’t done much to satiate her hunger pains. Gary’s kidnapping had been a wee bit distracting.

“Lemme pass this laptop to the tech boys and then you and me, we’re gonna go get some breakfast.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t use police resources to track down Gary for two days.”

“I think we can make an exception given that we have actual film of the abduction. Which reminds me, I’ll need a copy of that to pass to the forensics guys.”

“I thought you might.” She dug in her purse and came up with a thumb drive. “I copied the video footage onto that.” She dug again. “And here’s the list of people who work on the show in New York. I tried to call the producer a while ago, but he didn’t pick up his phone. When I hear back from him, I’ll check to make sure I didn’t miss anyone.”

“Perfect.” He took everything from her and swung by the squad room to drop off the list. He handed it to an attractive female officer who made Carrie feel completely inadequate. The woman detective was tall, confident-looking, and curvy. All the things Carrie was not. The woman even joked around casually with Detective LeBlanc. If there was a nice big rock anywhere around here, Carrie would just go ahead and crawl under it now.

Unlike the female detective, she completely sucked at being around other people. Some people even accused her of being antisocial. She preferred to think of herself as a loner. Not that she’d always been that way, of course. She’d had lots of friends in high school. And she and Shelly had been inseparable—

LeBlanc touched her elbow again, and again, she jumped. Lord, that man made her nervous. He ushered her upstairs to a lab of some kind. A harassed-looking guy jotted down Gary’s password and took the laptop and thumb drive off the detective’s hands with a promise to get to them as soon as possible.

LeBlanc placed a hand on the small of her back as he guided her into a crowded elevator, but she was prepared for the contact this time. It was nothing personal, of course. Surely a man like him would see nothing of interest in a shy, antisocial girl like her.

She did notice that he was using his big body to block her from the other riders in the elevator car. Was he protecting her, or was he subtly taking custody of her? It was hard to tell.

Darned if she could think of anything else but that big, warm palm resting lightly on the small of her back as they rode the elevator down to the first floor. Normally, she disliked men touching her. But this one’s hand was sending all kinds of crazy responses through her body. And they weren’t all bad. Which was a little shocking. Since when had she decided men—cops—were okay?

She breathed a sigh of relief when he guided her out of the crowded elevator and into the morning hustle and bustle of the French Quarter. His hand fell away from her, but the memory of it was still sending bolts of lightning zinging through her and still confusing her completely as to what it meant.

“I know a little joint around the corner that makes the best beignets in the Big Easy.”

She normally didn’t do dessert for breakfast, but this morning, she was all over the idea of a huge greasy donut doused in powdered sugar. “Lead on,” she declared.

The “joint” turned out to be long and narrow, barely wider than its double front doors, as if it had once been a bar. The detective spotted two open, high swivel stools near the back and pushed through the crowd toward the seats. He took her hand and curled his arm behind his back, not releasing her hand as he towed her along behind him in his wake. Which was just as well. People never moved out of the way for her. She was about as intimidating as a baby bunny rabbit.

She perched on her stool beside him and jumped as the man behind the bar bellowed, “’Ey, Bass! Where ya been, man?”

“Here and there,” LeBlanc said. “Saving the world. You know how it goes.”

“That I do,” the older man said shrewdly.

A portly tourist sat down on the stool beside hers, crowding her over toward LeBlanc. Her left thigh was forced into contact with his right leg, which felt like freshly forged steel pressed against hers. Their shoulders overlapped a little, although his were a hand span taller than hers.

His presence surrounded her, enveloped her. And, for the first time since the attack last night, she felt safe. Which was totally weird. Cops usually made her feel exactly the opposite. But this morning, in his presence, she could finally breathe normally again. She relished the easy slide of air in and out of her lungs.

She glanced up at him, vividly aware of the intimacy of their seating arrangement. “Bass? Is that what your friends call you?”

“That, or Catfish, which is a nickname from my work in the military.”

“Hah! You were military!”

He blinked down at her, looking surprised. The flecks of silver against a background of ocean blue fascinated her as they danced in his eyes. “I still am military, part-time. But how did you know?”

“You said, ‘Roger’ to me last night, and I figured you might have been a soldier.”

He studied her keenly. “You’re an observer of people, then?”

Swear to God, she was getting a little breathless sitting smashed against him like this. “It’s my job to look at everyone through the lens of how my camera would see them. Details matter.”

“Indeed they do. How long have you been working for Gary Hubbard?”

“Three seasons.”

“Ahh. That explains the change in the quality of the show three years ago.”

It was her turn to stare at him. “How do you know that?”

“Last night I watched a bunch of clips from America’s Ghosts.”

“Shouldn’t you have been out looking for Gary?”

“The bars were all closed. And I took a walk through Pirate’s Alley before I went home. I couldn’t find any forensic evidence to help us identify his captors. Frankly, the best evidence we’ve got is your film of the incident. It’s a rare thing to get actual high-quality video of a crime under investigation.”

“Glad I could help,” she replied wryly.

The coffee arrived in an old-fashioned chrome pot, and Bass poured her a cup of what turned out to be delicious chicory coffee, strong and aromatic. A moment later, a huge plate covered in fried, spiraling donut batter and powdered sugar was plunked down in front of her.

She took a bite of the hot, crispy pastry, tender and moist on the inside, and groaned as her taste buds orgasmed. “Ohmigosh, this is fantastic.”

Bass grinned, watching her as she took another bite...and groaned again. “You like it?” he drawled.

“God, yes.”

“So you appreciate good food, but you don’t cook.”

She picked up a napkin to wipe away what had to be a confectioner’s sugar mustache. “I like food too much to mangle it, so I let other people cook it.”

“Cooking’s not that hard. Someone just has to show you how, and then it takes a little practice.”

“Do you cook?” she asked him curiously.

“I’ve been known to putter around a bit in a kitchen.” He flashed her a thousand-watt smile that all but knocked her off her stool. Was he flirting with her? Surely not. But still. Dang, that man oozed charm. With difficulty, she recalled the general thread of their conversation.

The big bad detective was an amateur chef? Interesting. “Have you got a specialty?”

“Folks seem to like my jambalaya.”

“That’s some sort of stew, isn’t it?”

He grabbed his chest theatrically, which made her grin. “Woman, you’re killing me. Jambalaya is not just stew. It’s seafood and sausage in a base of rice and vegetables in broth, the whole thing seasoned until your eyes water from how good it tastes.”

She frowned. “I don’t do spicy food. My eyes would water from the heat.”

“Ahh well. A taste for heat can be learned.”

His voice had a rough edge that shivered across her skin. Or maybe that was just her shivering in response to his double entendre. She glanced at him sidelong, and he was frowning down into his cup of coffee.

Her heart tumbled to the floor. He seemed annoyed with himself, maybe for making the inadvertently sexy comment. Drat. He wasn’t attracted to her in the least. She looked away, more disappointed than made any sense to her at all.

“Where are you from that you don’t know what jambalaya is and you don’t like a little heat?” he asked, the sudden question startling her.

His expression was closed now. Stubborn. The man had no intention of flirting with her. At all. She mumbled, “I live in New York City. But I’m originally from upstate New York.”

“Ahh. A Yankee. That explains a lot.”

Nope. Not attracted to her at all. He was backing off that heat comment as fast as humanly possible. Well, hell.

“What does my being a Yankee explain?”

He merely shrugged and took a sip of hot coffee. They ate in silence for a moment, and then, in an abrupt change of subject, he said, “I put out a BOLO on your boss.”

“What’s a BOLO?”

“It stands for Be On the Look Out. The entire NOPD got copies of the picture you gave me and will be watching for him. If he’s out and about anywhere in the city, we’ll find him and bring him in.”

“What if he doesn’t turn up?” she asked, dread thick in her throat.

“Then we’ll see what the forensics guys find in his computer. If that doesn’t give us anything to work with, we’ll pursue other leads until we find him. You haven’t had any phone calls from anyone since last night, have you?” he asked.

“You mean like a ransom call?” she blurted, surprised.

“Correct.”

“No”

“I’d like to stay with you through the day today. If there’s going to be a ransom demand, it usually comes in the first twenty-four hours after an abduction.”

“Do you want to hook up my phone to a machine that can trace the call?”

“Kidnappers worth their salt know how to disguise the location of calls these days. They use voice-over-Internet protocols and bounce the calls off a bunch of IP addresses. Long story short, we can’t trace calls if the caller doesn’t want to be traced.”

“That sucks,” she commented. “You’d think technology would help the police catch more criminals.”

“What works for us works for them.”

“Just a heads-up for you,” she said reluctantly. “When word gets out that Gary’s been kidnapped, it’s likely to draw some media attention.”

“How much media attention?”

“News crews, journalists, probably some tabloid photographers,” she answered grimly. She would have to find a way to stay behind the scenes. Off camera. At all costs, her face could not be broadcast nationally.

Bass swore under his breath. “Look. I can’t be put in front of cameras or have my picture taken. I may have to hand this case off to someone else—”

“No!” She interrupted him sharply, “I want you!”

His sapphire gaze snapped to hers, flashing blue fire, and for an instant, raw attraction flared between them. Then his expression shuttered once more, going implacably distant.

“You believed me last night and didn’t wait to act,” she babbled. “I trust you. And I don’t usually trust police at all—” She broke off, appalled at oversharing like that.

“Why not?”

Well, fudge. She hadn’t meant to blurt that out. “Umm. It’s nothing. Never mind.”

“No, I do mind. Why don’t you trust cops?”

“It’s an old story that should stay buried. I didn’t break the law if that’s what’s worrying you. I just had...a bad experience.”

“Not all cops are alike, you know. Take me, for example. I’m better looking than most.”

She had to smile a little at that.

“What would Gary normally be doing today?” Bass asked, interrupting her turbulent emotions.

“He would sleep through the morning and wake up around noon. He putters around doing nothing all afternoon, goes out for supper, and then we head over to the next shooting location and set up for the night’s shoot.”

“And where is that scheduled to take place tonight?”

“An old house in the French Quarter that has been converted to a bed-and-breakfast. It’s supposed to be haunted, of course.”

He pounced on her choice of words. “You don’t buy into the haunted bit?”

“I suspect the owner is mainly interested in getting free publicity for her business. I thought the legend of the ghost in her parlor that she submitted to the show was pretty thin. It felt made up to me when I first heard it, and our researcher in New York wasn’t able to find any record of this supposed ghost anywhere else.”

His mouth twitched, but he asked seriously enough, “Are some ghost stories not made up?”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t get me started. Gary is a hard-core believer, but in my three years with him, I have yet to see a real ghost.”

“Thank God,” Bass muttered under his breath. She wasn’t sure whether or not she was supposed to have heard that remark, but she responded to it anyway.

“You didn’t think I actually believe in all this woo-woo stuff, did you?” She burst out laughing at the notion. “Filming America’s Ghosts is just a job...in an industry where getting steady work is a rare gift.”

He grinned. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear that.” Their gazes met and the sparks exploded again. Lord, he was attractive. And this funny, friendly version of him was darned near irresistible. Men never flirted with her. She was the mousy one they looked past to find the hot girls.

“I thought folks in New Orleans were superstitious,” she countered. “That they go for voodoo and fortune-tellers and ghosts.”

“I’m not from New Orleans. I’m from the low country west of the city.”

“As in bayous and alligators?” Her eyes went wide. No thank you to either of those!

He grinned broadly. “Everyone gets all hepped up about a few bitty ole’ gators. You stay out of their way, they’ll pretty much stay out of yours.”

“They still scare me to death,” she declared. “They eat people.”

“Only the big ones actually eat people. The smaller ones might bite your leg off or take a chunk out of your side, but they can’t swallow you whole.”

She snorted. “If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re failing spectacularly.”

He shrugged. “Gators are primitive, and they are predators. But they’re not completely stupid. And they perceive us as predators in return. They honestly do try to stay out of our way for the most part. Now, if you want to worry about critters where I come from, those would be snakes. We’ve got ’em all. Copperheads, cottonmouths, even rattlesnakes. Sometimes they’re so thick you can’t go thirty feet without seeing one.”

“Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. I do not do snakes.”

He laughed. “City slicker.”

“Guilty as charged. I’m a city girl all the way.” She slugged down the last of her coffee and finished off her beignet with a lick of her fingers.

“What would you normally be doing at this time of day?” Bass inquired.

“Sleeping. We work late at night, and I often sleep till noon.”

“God, that sounds decadent,” he mumbled.

“It is. Then I get up, go for a run, eat, and spend the afternoon editing dailies.”

“Dailies?”

“The raw footage I shot the night before. I do a rough cut and pull together all the best footage, then I send that video and the rest of the raw video to the post-production folks back in New York. They create the finished show.”

“Do you want to go back to your place now and crawl into bed for a few hours?”

Her shocked gaze shot to his. She swore she caught a momentary glint of amusement behind those bright blue eyes, but she couldn’t be sure. Jeez, Carrie. Not everything the poor man says is an invitation to have sex. She must be even more attracted to him than she realized—or admitted to herself.

“Umm, no. No time to sleep,” she answered belatedly. “I’m going to have to reschedule tonight’s show shoot until tomorrow and hope Gary turns up in the meantime. Besides, I’m too worried to sleep, and that cup of coffee’s gonna keep me revved up for a few hours.”

“Then how about we head back to Pirate’s Alley? You can walk me through what happened.”

Like she was going to refuse to cooperate with the police investigation? She followed in his wake as Bass elbowed his way through the morning coffee crush, and she breathed a sigh of relief as they stepped onto the sidewalk once more. Along with her fear of snakes, she wasn’t a particular fan of being crushed in crowds. She supposed that came from being small and easy to overlook.

“Claustrophobic?” Bass murmured.

“How did you know?”

“The look of relief on your face when we made it out of that crowd.”

Note to self: the cop is definitely as observant as I am.

“Jackson Square’s not far from here,” he said. “Are you up for a walk?”

Stretching her legs after all the stress of the past few hours, maybe burning off a little adrenaline, sounded great. She nodded and he headed out.

She was impressed that he shortened his stride so she could keep up. Thank God. She hated having to racewalk or half jog to keep up with people.

The pedestrians crowding the sidewalks all appeared to have places to go and things to do, ignoring each other and barely noticing the elegant old city they passed through. As for her, she couldn’t keep her gaze from straying up to the wrought-iron balconies and tall, shuttered window casements. Goodness, this city was photogenic.

“Tell me about yourself,” Bass asked.

“Not much to tell.” She clammed up out of habit. Police were bad. Say nothing to them.

“Let me rephrase that. What’s the research going to tell me when my people are done looking you up?”

“Why are you going to look me up?” she demanded. “That’s an invasion of privacy!”

“This is a police investigation, Miss Price.”

“Call me Carrie. Miss Price makes me sound like an old lady.”

“Only if you’ll call me Bastien. Or Bass.”

She mumbled an affirmative. But it felt weird to think of calling this intimidating detective by his first name. The flirty guy had definitely given way to the cop as soon as they left the restaurant. His jaw had gone hard again, and he was back to asking her pointed questions and then staring a hole through her when she answered him.

“You’re dodging my question, Carrie. Who are you?”

He was totally right, of course. She was dodging him. “What do you want to know about me?” she asked, feeling surly.

“Where are you from?”

“Born and raised in New York, north of Albany.”

“Your whole life?”

“Yup.”

“Do you like snow?”

“Hate it,” she replied with genuine passion.

“Me too. Miserable stuff to crawl around in.”

“When did you figure that out? And where? It’s not like it snows around here very often.”

“If I told you I’d have to kill you.”

“Oh, puh-lease. That’s such a tired line.”

He flashed her a brief grin. “And yet, I stand by it.”

He sounded serious behind that boyish smile of his. Yikes.

They arrived at the mouth of Pirate’s Alley, but it looked completely different this morning. It was still narrow and historic looking, but the fog and mysterious darkness were gone, replaced by street artists setting up easels and clipping sketches to the wrought-iron fence of St. Anthony’s Garden. A clerk was opening up a hat shop on the corner, and in the bright light of day, the alley looked completely harmless. A few pedestrians strode past, not meandering as if they were there to visit the alley, but passing through en route to somewhere else.

“Why isn’t the alley blocked off with police tape? Isn’t it a crime scene?” she asked.

“The NOPD can’t officially investigate a kidnapping for forty-eight hours. A crime hasn’t technically taken place yet. I’m going ahead with the preliminary work unofficially, based on that video of yours. Which the forensics guys haven’t verified as being authentic, by the way.”

“It’s authentic!”

“I believe you,” he said soothingly. “But you also have access to high-tech equipment that could doctor film images easily. The NOPD will have to verify that tape before they act on it.”

She huffed, annoyed. She had no reason to fake Gary’s kidnapping.

Bass was speaking again. “...besides, I went over every inch of the alley last night and didn’t find any evidence whatsoever.”

How could a crime have happened in this exact place just last night? Life had gone on completely unaffected by Gary’s abduction. It didn’t seem fair, somehow.

“...and how deep in the alley were you when those men approached Gary?” Bass was asking.

“Oh. Uhh, down this way.” She walked nearly halfway down the alley. Using lampposts as references, she estimated where Gary had been standing when the attack happened. “Gary was about here, and I was about twenty feet back that way.” She pointed to where they’d come from.

“I’ll pretend to be Gary, and you go stand where you were,” Bass directed her. “I’m going to call your cell phone, and you talk me through what happened.”

She backed away from him. Her cell phone rang, and Bass’s voice caressed her ear. “Can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” she managed to choke out. “Can you hear me?”

“I’ve got you five by five.”

As she recalled, that was military speak for him hearing her just fine.

“Talk me through it,” he murmured in her ear.

She gulped at his sexy drawl. “Umm, Gary was walking backward slowly. He got to where you are now and stopped to talk about the ghosts from the old prison. That’s where they jumped him. Right where you are now.”

Bass stopped moving. “Then what?”

“I stopped as well to film what I thought was a staged attack. When they grabbed him, they started moving away quickly. I couldn’t run after them or my camera would jiggle too much. I wasn’t using a steady cam rig last night.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a harness a cameraman wears. The camera’s mounted to it. The harness compensates for my movement or shaking in the camera to keep the filmed image perfectly steady. Hence the name.”

Bass turned and started walking away from her swiftly. “Follow me at the speed you were walking last night. I want to time how much of a head start the kidnappers had on you.”

She did as he ordered, dismayed at how rapidly he pulled away from her and disappeared around the corner at the far end of the alley. She started counting seconds in her head as she continued to walk at the speed she remembered moving last night. About here, she’d sped up some. Not too fast. About like that.

Fifty-five. Fifty-six. She reached the end of the alley and Bass stepped out from behind a building on the corner. “Almost a full minute,” she said in dismay. “God, if only I’d known he was in real trouble, I could have run after them. Maybe seen a getaway car. Gotten a license plate.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Bass replied. “You might have ended up kidnapped right along with your boss. Or, if you had caught up with them, even worse could have happened to you. For all you know, they were armed and dangerous. At least this way, you survived to report the crime.”

“Aren’t there traffic cameras or something you guys can pull footage from to find out where Gary went once he and his captors reached this street?”

“We’ve got partial closed circuit coverage of the city, but far from every block of it is covered. The cameras here point into Jackson Square, not up and down Chartres Street. I put in a request last night for the footage to be pulled, but I’m not hopeful it will help. Plus, it’ll take a day or two to get it.”

“Who on earth wants something from Gary? He’s just a schlocky ghost hunter with a moderately successful TV show. It’s not like he’s rich or anything. He’s perpetually broke, in fact.”

“That’s what I plan to figure out.”

She stared up at him entreatingly. “You have to find him. He wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“Tell me this, Carrie. Do you think you might be in danger, too?”

Shock passed through her body like a wave of icy water. “Me? Why me? I’m nobody.”

“Are you sure the two of you didn’t see something, maybe film something, that someone didn’t want seen?”

“No, I’m not sure. We’ve been filming here and there around New Orleans. Background shots for filler during the show’s voice-over narrations.”

“I’m going to need to see that footage. All of it.”

“Uhh, sure. It’s back at my place.”

“Then that’s where you and I are headed next.”

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