Page 108 of The Cajun Doctor

She answered on the first ring.

“Tante Lulu, is Samantha there?”

“No. Do ya know where the Tabasco sauce is? I cain’t find it nowhere.”

“What do you mean, no? Where is she?”

“Who?”

“Samantha.”

“Oh, I ain’t supposed ta say.”

That was answer enough for Daniel. He clicked off and put his car in gear, heading toward New Orleans. He had a rough idea where Nick’s new medical building was located.

He saw enough evidence of the harm that came to people, without trying. He’d be damned if he’d let her put herself in harm’s way, willingly.

As a result, he drove like a maniac north on 90 toward New Orleans, and had no trouble finding Nick’s three-story Southern Women’s Maternity Center, which looked like a mini Taj Mahal. No wonder he was in financial trouble. All black onyx, marble, and glass. It even had a dome and finial on top like the Indian architectural wonder. Obviously, the clientele served here had to be of the wealthy class (except for Nick’s black market baby mothers). No way would regular insurance pay for the kind of luxury this place exuded.

He assumed there were already unmarked police and FBI vehicles parked around the perimeter of the building. At least, he could hope so, for the benefit of Samantha’s safety.

He picked a spot near the front entrance and hesitated, not sure if Samantha and her “posse” had arrived yet. He could go in and case out the place, maybe ask a receptionist if they’d seen Dr. Coltrane’s ex-wife, but then the question was taken out of his hands as he saw Samantha’s BMW pull into the far end of the lot.

“I knew it!” he muttered to himself as he realized he’d been half hoping that he’d been wrong. That she really wouldn’t be coming to meet Nick the Prick as he went looney-bird, batshit crazy.

Her BMW was immediately followed by several other vehicles that were probably the FBI and/or local police, although they were innocuous enough. A Comcast van. A beat-up pickup truck. A private mini-bus for handicapped folks. And, holy crap! Was that an ice cream wagon? The vehicles pulled in on either side of Samantha’s BMW and one just across the lane from her. The ice cream trunk was parked off to one side of the parking lot, near the building, though he noticed its bell wasn’t ringing. There was also a black guy with expensive sunglasses trimming the bushes, and a female jogger, with the biceps of a linebacker, who’d made two laps around the parking lot so far.

And Samantha was dead center, like a bull’s-eye, in the middle of this goat rodeo. He exited his car with a foul expletive that caused the lady getting out of the next car with a toddler to flinch. “Sorry.”

After riding in his air-conditioned car, the hot Louisiana sun hit him like a blow. Hotheaded came immediately to mind, in more ways than one. He stomped quickly to the back of the parking lot so he would be out of range of any security cameras in case Coltrane was watching. Though the good doctor wouldn’t have any reason to be suspicious of him. As far as Daniel knew, Coltrane wasn’t even aware of his existence.

The FBI saw him almost immediately. In fact, there were probably other agents planted around the lot and even inside the building, prepared to record Samantha’s wired meeting. And they expected Samantha to suddenly become some kind of Jennifer Garner/Sydney Bristow CIA agent from the old TV series, Alias. Insanity!

Brad Dillon stepped out of one side of a cable company van, and Sonny Sonnier stepped out of the other. The fire in their eyes turned the temperature about ten degrees higher. And that fire was aimed at him.

Brad held a map in one hand and pretended to be asking Daniel for direction but, instead, he hissed, even as he took hold of his upper arm, “What the hell are you doing here, LeDeux?”

Sonnier came around his other side, also grabbing an arm. “I shoulda known. Ya cain’t tell a LeDeux ta do nothin’.” The agents and law enforcement officers in the other vehicles were probably shaking their heads at the crazy ass doctor who was going to ruin the show.

Almost magically, the sliding door on the side of the van opened and he was shoved inside, and Samantha was shoved into the other side, rather stunned.

“I give you five minutes to send this asshole home or we abort this mission,” Dillon told Samantha.

“Let me jist shoot ’im with a stun gun. Quicker and more fun,” Sonnier said.

“No, give me the stun gun. I’ll take care of him.” Samantha shot him a look that would curdle milk.

He sank down onto the bench seat facing hers, and the sliding doors slammed shut. There was even a click of the lock. What did they think he was going to do? Pick her up in his arms and run from the vehicle. Even if he made it out, in this heat, he wouldn’t make it ten feet. Hell, even without this heat, he wouldn’t make it that far.

He made a quick survey of her appearance and felt a little sick. Yeah, she was wearing the same clothes she’d had on this morning, but she’d amped up the sex factor with makeup, hooker high heels, and a scarf around her waist that pulled her blouse tighter against her breasts. A wave of unwarranted possessiveness swept over him as he realized she’d done all of this to impress her ex-husband. That was unreasonable, he knew, but what place had reason in a jealous mind?

Jealous? Me? Aaarrgh!

“You were supposed to be gone for hours,” she said.

The wrong, wrong, wrong thing to say! “With that grocery list you gave me, I would have been.”

“And?”