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“Not at all,” Sherwood said, his expression edged with distaste. “Just don’t do anything stupid, Gilbert. You’re still a probbie in my mind.”
“Yes, sir.” She watched him go, then when he was out of sight, she turned to Connor. “What was that all about?”
“We need to do one more search,” Connor said on a low breath. “I’ve learned to read people and, Josie, I’m telling you, something is off with your boss.”
“You’re imagining things,” she retorted on a curt whisper. “And I’m in enough trouble. Let’s look around, then get out of here.” She whirled. “Oh, wait. We don’t have a car, do we?”
“Actually, I know where Armond keeps another garage,” Connor said. “And I know a car that will get us back to town in a hurry.”
“You’ve been holding out on me,” she said as they retraced their steps and peered into the daylight filtering through the gaping hole in the roof. And she had to wonder, what else was he hiding?
“No, I think I mentioned it in passing. He has lots of outbuildings around here. But this is a small wooden shed, not what I’d call a garage.”
“Right.” Josie lifted tools and shuffled through old rags before opening toolboxes and hardware drawers. Nothing stood out. But this place was like a giant cave, and the upstairs rooms were completely cut off and burned out.
Then they both turned to each other. “Another garage.”
“Armond has another garage,” Connor said, his eyes wide.
“And maybe, just maybe, that’s where he’s hiding the something we’re all looking for. Lead the way, please.”
Josie made a production of bowing and holding her arm out. But she had to wonder why Connor had just now remembered such a vital piece of information.
* * *
“Great, more swamp.”
Josie’s boots slushed through the dark, rich loam as she batted away both bugs and palmetto leaves. “I’m beginning to hate Louisiana.”
“More than Texas?”
She ignored that baited question. “I loved Texas. I mean, I grew up there.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Connor replied. He stomped ahead of her, using a big stick he’d found from a fallen branch to hit at possible poisonous snakes. “So you’re a Texas native.”
“Born and bred.” She stopped to take a breath and to carefully measure her answers. “My father moved among the upper crust of Houston. He also took a lot of their money.” She shrugged and pushed at her damp hair. “I think that’s why my mother left Texas. She couldn’t take the pain of her friends abandoning her.”
Nor the pain of her daughter’s judgment and scorn, Josie thought.
Connor knocked down a twisted vine. “Do you ever visit your father in prison?”
“I haven’t in a while. We don’t have much to talk about.”
She thought about Dallas and the undercover operation that had gone bad. She couldn’t afford to mess up this time. She’d wind up old and alone like her mother.
“There it is,” Connor said, turning to help her the last few feet.
“That’s a garage?”
The old lean-to looked as if it might fall over if they touched it. “There’s a car in there?”
“Armond is a man of many surprises.” Connor moved through the bramble toward the building. “He liked to hide things in odd places, which is probably why we can’t find anything interesting around the house or the big garage.”
“And you just happen to know about this car?”
“He showed it to me once when he was in a melancholy mood. This was his first car.”
Josie glanced around to make sure they didn’t get picked up by a sheriff’s deputy. “Why haven’t you mentioned this earlier?”
Connor cut his gaze to her. “Are you curious or are you interrogating me for a reason?”
“It’s just odd that we’ve spent most of the night trying to find something in the big fancy garage when you knew about this one all along.”
Connor stopped to give her a harsh stare. “Hey, we’ve been kind of busy for the past few days and we only realized something might be hidden in the garage after Beaux mentioned it and then you saved Vanessa Armond, remember? So we focused on that garage. Or do you still not trust me? Josie?”
