Steve had told Lonnie that Laurant and her boyfriend were driving an Explorer, and they were standing next to a new, red Ford Explorer. Steve hadn’t told him anything about Nick, just that he was claiming to be Laurant’s fiancé. Since Steve planned to marry Laurant, Lonnie needed to put the fear of God into Nick. “Run him out of town,” Steve had ordered, and Lonnie, salivating over the wad of cash Steve dangled in front of him, promised to do just that.
“That’s the sheriff’s son, Lonnie,” Laurant whispered. “What’s he up to?”
“Looks like we’re going to find out real soon,” he whispered back. Then he shouted, “Hey, kid, move your car.”
Lonnie left the motor running as he opened the door and jumped out. He was tall and gangly, his complexion marred by acne scars. His thin lips disappeared inside his sneer, and his hair hung down in his face in long, oily strands. Nick judged him to be around eighteen or nineteen years old.
This one was already a lost cause. He could see it in his eyes.
“Let’s start with the car,” Lonnie told his friends. “Trash it.” He pulled his switchblade knife out of his back pocket. Snickering, he boasted to his friends, “I’m going to scare the shit out of Mr. Big City. Watch and learn.” He flipped the dirty blade open as he slowly advanced. “Laura, you’re gonna be riding home with us, ’cause your boyfriend’s car’s going to be a piece of shit by the time I get finished with it.”
Nick laughed. It wasn’t the response Lonnie had anticipated. “What’s so damned funny?”
“You,” Nick answered. He spotted Noah shoving Tommy behind him as he rushed down the stairs toward them. He called out to him. “Hey, Noah, the local thug wants to trash the new car.”
“But that’s . . . ,” Tommy began.
“Sure it is,” Nick interrupted.
“Lonnie, what do you think you’re doing? Put that knife away,” Tommy ordered.
“I got some business with Laura,” Lonnie said. “You and the other priest go on inside.”
“Is this guy stupid or what?” Noah asked incredulously.
“I’m thinking he must be,” Nick drawled as he reached inside his jacket and flipped the snap holding his gun in place.
Furious that he was being mocked in front of his friends, Lonnie lunged forward and thrust the knife into the left front tire. Then he stabbed it again, smiling when he heard the hiss of air.
“Still think I’m stupid?”
“Thank the Lord we have a spare,” Noah called out. He was busy keeping Tommy behind him and trying to watch the morons at the same time.
Lonnie reacted just the way Noah hoped. He sliced the other tire. His friends hooted with laughter, and that only encouraged him. He carved a jagged line in the grille, then did the same to the hood.
Then he stepped back to survey his handiwork. “Now how are you going to get home?” he taunted.
Nick shrugged. “I figured I’d drive my car.”
“With two flat tires?”
Nick smiled. “This isn’t my car.”
Lonnie blinked. Nick took a step toward him as he called out, “Noah, maybe you ought to go inside and get the sheriff. He’ll want to know his kid’s been messing with his car.”
“Shit!” Lonnie shouted.
“Drop the knife. Do it now,” he ordered. “Don’t make this any worse than it already is. You’ve destroyed private property, and threatening a federal—”
He was about to tell Lonnie he was an FBI agent but wasn’t given the chance.
“Nobody makes a fool out of me,” Lonnie hissed.
“You did that all by yourself,” Nick countered. “Now drop the knife. This is your last warning.”
Lonnie lunged, shouting, “I’m going to cut you up into pieces, you as**ole.”
The boast was empty. “Yeah, right,” Nick said as he kneed Lonnie, then snatched the knife and tossed it to the ground. He slammed him into the car, setting off the alarm.
It happened so fast, Laurant didn’t have time to blink. Lonnie was doubling over, screaming in agony. She saw the knife and stepped back so she could kick it under the car.
The second the alarm went off, Lonnie’s buddies scrambled to their car and piled in. Nick let go of Lonnie and watched him collapse.
“You as**ole. I’m going to—”
“Oh, look. Here comes Daddy,” Nick said cheerfully.
The sheriff was running down the stairs, his big stomach jiggling up and down. In the meantime, the three boys in the car were all frantically trying to find the keys. Noah strolled over to the driver’s side and said, “Looking for these?”
“We didn’t do nothing. It was all Lonnie’s idea.”
“Shut up, Ricky,” the boy in the backseat shouted.
“Get out of the car,” Noah ordered. “Nice and easy, and keep your hands where I can see them.” He didn’t want to blow his cover, but he had his hand in his jacket on the butt of his Glock just in case one of them pulled a gun on him.
The sheriff looked like he wanted to cry. “My new car? Look at my new car. Did you do this, boy? Did you?”
Lonnie struggled to his feet. “No,” he sneered. “That as**ole did it,” he added, pointing to Nick. “And he kicked me in my knee too.”
“I was going to tell you I bought myself a new car,” the sheriff continued, as though he hadn’t heard a word Lonnie had said. “I was going to tell you. I was going to let you drive it too.” He trailed his hand along the deep scratches in the hood, his eyes misty. “It wasn’t even perfect for one whole day. I just picked it up.”
“I’m telling you, the as**ole did it,” Lonnie said again.
“The kid needs some work on his vocabulary,” Noah said.
“Are you going to believe me or not?” Lonnie shouted at his father. “I’m telling you for the last time, he cut your tires and scratched the paint.”
Laurant was incensed. She pushed past Nick to face the sheriff. “I know he’s your son and that this is difficult for you, but you are the sheriff, and you have to do your job. Lonnie’s lying. He did the damage. He thought your new car belonged to my fiancé. Like it or not, you’re going to have to arrest him.”
Lloyd put his hands up. “Slow down, Laura. No reason to be hasty. It’s my car and I’ll make sure my boy pays the consequences if he did the damage, but he’s saying your boyfriend—”
Laurant cut him off. She was so angry, she was sputtering. “He’s lying,” she repeated. “There are four witnesses. My brother, Father Clayborne, Nick, and me. You have to arrest him.”
“Well, now, the way I see it, that’s four against four, ’cause I’m sure Lonnie’s friends are going to back him up, and I don’t have any reason at all not to believe them.”
“Lonnie threatened us with a knife.”
Looking past Laurant to Nick, the sheriff demanded, “You’d best get your woman under control. I’m not going to put up with her yapping at me. Now you just back away, Laura, and hold your tongue.”
Laurant couldn’t believe the sheriff was talking to her as though she were a naughty child. “Hold my tongue? I don’t think so,” she said. “Do something,” she demanded.
The sheriff glared at her. “I am going to do something,” he announced. “You there,” he muttered, pointing to Nick. “I want to see some identification, and I want to see it now.”
Laurant’s temper exploded. She turned to Tommy and spoke in rapid French, telling him what an incompetent fool she thought the sheriff was. In fluent French, Nick told her to calm down.
The sheriff’s hands were balled into fists, and he kept glancing at his son. He wanted to kick some sense into the boy, and it took a good deal of discipline to control his fury. Besides, if he did give in to his temper, there was a good chance that Lonnie would strike back and beat the crap out of him. Lonnie had done it before, and Lloyd knew he would do it again.
“I said I want to see some identification.”
“No problem,” Nick replied as he pulled out his badge and flipped it open. “Nicholas Buchanan, Sheriff. FBI.”
“Ah shit,” the sheriff moaned.
“You’re going to have to lock him up. I’ll come by tomorrow and fill out the paperwork.”
“What paperwork, Mr. FBI agent? It was my car that got damaged. Lonnie, stop your snickering or I swear I’ll backhand you.”
Noah came up behind the sheriff. “I’m not real familiar with the law, being a priest and all,” he said, “but it seems to me that a crime was committed here by your son. Lonnie threatened an FBI agent with a knife, and that’s some kind of a crime, isn’t it?”
“Well now, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t,” the sheriff hedged. “I don’t see a knife, so what you’re claiming might just be fabrication. Do you see my dilemma?”
“The knife’s under the car,” Noah told him.
Trying to buy some time while he figured out what he was going to do, the sheriff muttered, “How’d it get under the car?”
“I kicked it there,” Laurant said.
“What were you doing with a knife?”
“Oh, for the love of . . . ,” she began.
The sheriff took his hat off and scratched his head. “Now here’s what I’m going to do. You all go on home now and let me deal with this. You can come on by the office tomorrow, but you call me first,” he told Nick. “I’ll have it all sorted out by then. Go on home now.”
Laurant was so furious she was shaking. Without a word, she turned her back on the sheriff and walked to Nick’s car, her high heels clicking hard on the pavement.
Nick could hear her muttering under her breath. As he opened the passenger door for her, he took hold of her hand. “Are you all right? You’re trembling. You weren’t scared, were you? I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you. You do know that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m just angry, that’s all. The sheriff isn’t going to do anything about Lonnie. He certainly won’t arrest him. You just wait and see.”
“You are angry.”
“He had a knife,” she cried out. “He could have hurt you.”
Nick was taken aback. “You were worried about me?”
Tommy and Noah were getting into the backseat, and she didn’t want them to hear her. “Of course I was worried about you. Now will you stop grinning like an idiot and get in the car? I want to go home.”
He wanted to kiss her, but he settled on squeezing her hand instead. It was a sorry substitute.
“Sheriff,” Nick called out as he walked around to the driver’s side. “I’m going to want to talk to your son tomorrow.”
Tommy was craning his neck to look out the back window when Nick drove the car out of the parking lot. He could see the sheriff arguing with Lonnie.
“You don’t think Lonnie could be the guy who’s stalking Laurant, do you?”
“We’re going to check him out,” Nick answered. “But I don’t think he’s the man we’re after. Lonnie doesn’t strike me as real intelligent.”
“The kid’s a moron,” Noah said.
“Yeah, well, you did your part to spur him on,” Nick said.
“How’d I do that?” he asked innocently.
“Thank the Lord we’ve got a spare? Isn’t that what you said to Lonnie after he cut the first tire?”
“Maybe,” Noah allowed. “I wanted to keep him busy so he’d leave you and Laurant alone.”
“Is that right? I figured you wanted to see how far he’d go.”
Noah shrugged while he tugged on his stiff collar. It was chafing his neck. “This thing feels like a noose,” he told Tommy.
“Nick, were there any agents at the restaurant? And if there were, why didn’t one of them come forward to help?” Laurant asked.
“It was under control,” Nick answered.
“Wesson ordered me to let Tommy hear confession,” Noah told Nick.
“Pete doesn’t want him to,” Nick responded. “It’s a bad idea.”
“That’s what I told him.”
From Noah’s tone of voice, Laurant knew he didn’t like Wesson any more than Nick did. She turned in her seat to ask him why.
Nick pressed his thumb against the disc so Wesson couldn’t listen in.
Noah noticed what he was doing. “You don’t have to do that. I want Wesson to hear me. For the record, I think he’s a glory seeker and power hungry. He doesn’t give a damn who he steps on to get to the top, including Morganstern.”
Noah was on a roll and wasn’t going to stop until he’d spilled all of his pent-up frustration with the man running the operation. “He sure isn’t a team player,” he added. “But then neither am I. Still, I avoid publicity just as much as you do, but Wesson goes looking for it. Remember the Stark case?” he asked, and before Nick could answer, he added, “Of course you do. You have to kill someone . . . you don’t forget that. Not ever.”
“What about the Stark case?” Nick asked, looking in the rearview mirror at Noah.
“I’ll bet you were surprised when you opened your newspaper a couple of days later and read that human interest story about you saving that kid. Didn’t you think it was damn odd that the reporter wrote all that stuff about you, your family, and your best friend, Tom?”
“You’re saying that Wesson leaked the story?” Nick asked. He was getting mad just thinking about the possibility.
“Hell, yes, I’m saying it,” he replied. “You did notice Wesson’s name was splattered all over that article, didn’t you? If I could get that reporter alone in a room for a couple of minutes, I could prove it too.”
“Why would Wesson do it?” Laurant asked. “What does he have to gain?”
“He’s got a grudge. Plus, he wants to run the Apostles,” Noah said. “That’s always been his goal, and I think he figures the more publicity he can get for himself, the better his chances will be. I’m telling you, Nick, as soon as Morganstern retires or accepts a promotion, Wesson’s going to move in. When that day comes, you’d be smart to get out.”