“I don’t know. That’s why I hired Miss Sutton—to find out.”
Patty shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. How did you know? How did you even suspect?”
Gabe didn’t want to have this conversation. Not ever. But especially not here and not now. “I don’t want to talk about it here.”
“Then let’s go where you do want to talk about it,” Patty snapped. “Because you will tell me. Are you in danger?” Then she blinked. “Am I in danger?” she whispered.
Gabe had intended to keep his family in the dark until he saw the fear in his cousin’s eyes. He met Molly’s gaze, found her as calm and compassionate as she’d been in Burke’s office. “I need to tell her,” he murmured. “So that she can be careful, too.”
Patty went sheet-white at that. “Mother of God,” she whispered.
Molly smoothed a hand over Patty’s back. “Come with us. We’ll sit in a secure area and have a chat.”
“Where?” Patty asked mutinously. “Gabe may have hired you, but I don’t know you.”
“Let’s go to our office. I work for a guy named Burke Broussard.”
Some of Patty’s tension dissipated at that. She looked at Gabe. “Your dad’s old partner? That Burke Broussard?”
“One and the same. I trust him. And I trust Molly.”
Patty nodded once. “Then let’s go. I’ll tell Donna Lee that I’m leaving for a while.”
The Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana
MONDAY, JULY 25, 1:45 P.M.
“Did you have a nice lunch with the mayor, sir?”
Lamont slid into the back of the town car. Black, of course. In New Orleans in damn July. Thank the good Lord for air-conditioning.
“I did, indeed,” he told his driver, whose name actually was James. Telling him Home, James had gotten old after the first week, however, which had been at least twenty years ago. Loosening his tie, he handed a paper bag over the front seat into James’s hands. “The mayor’s chef made shrimp po’boys. I asked him to make one for you.”
James beamed because shrimp po’boys were his favorite. “Thank you, sir.” He set the bag aside and turned to face traffic. “Where to now?”
“Back to the office.”
His meeting with the mayor had been very successful, but he had actual work to complete. One of these days, lunch with important people would be the work, but he wasn’t there yet. Soon. Very, very soon.
He shrugged out of the hot jacket and pulled his phone from a pocket, hoping to see a message from Stockman, but there were no new messages from his right-hand man. Which meant the Houston kid was still breathing, dammit.
There was, however, a text message from a very familiar number.
Call me.
He swallowed his sigh. Jackson Mule was becoming a pain in his ass. Correction: Jackson Mule had always been a pain in his ass, ever since they’d been kids back in the old neighborhood. Some people did not change.
Irritated, Lamont settled into his seat and hit Jackass’s name in his contacts list—labeled “Jackass” because that had been Mule’s nickname for decades. “What?” Lamont snapped when the man answered.
“Monty, please. Is that any way to speak to your partner?”
Lamont ground his teeth. He hated to be called Monty, and Jackass knew it. He supposed it was only fair that the man called him a nickname, too, but it didn’t mean he had to like it. “What is it?”
An exasperated sigh was his reply. “I’ve got information you will want to know, but I can always hang up and let you get back to whatever it was you were doing that’s more important than talking to me.”
Someday...Someday he’d kill the bastard. He’d make it hurt, too. For now, he needed him. “For Christ’s sake, just tell me.”
“Your boy’s boy has done hired himself a PI.”