She yanked her hand out of Zane’s grasp and drew a deep breath. “What are you doing here?” she hissed.
“I heard about Murdoch,” Ty told her, remarkably calm in the face of her temper.
She glared at Zane, her eyes raking him up and down.
“This is my partner, Zane Garrett.”
“You’re a Fed too?” she spat at Zane.
It was sort of a bullshit question, but she was obviously rattled by Ty showing up out of thin air. Zane tipped his head and raised one eyebrow in silent confirmation, if not a subtle dare to comment about it, before looking her over in return, checking for obvious weapons.
“Zane, this is Ava Gaudet. Ava, we need your help.”
“Right,” she said with obvious disdain. She turned her dark eyes back to Ty. “You need my help. Like you needed my help before?”
Ty narrowed his eyes before letting them stray to meet Zane’s. He shook his head. “This was a waste of time,” he said to Zane. He jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s go.”
Zane was perfectly willing to let any of Ty’s old flames carry on without them, so he nodded and took a slow step back. He didn’t see any knives on Ava, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one. Or more.
Ty turned to go, showing no compunctions about exposing his back to the woman.
She sighed loudly and held up her hand. “Wait. What do you want from me?”
Ty studied her briefly before digging into his pocket and pulling out the small red bag he’d been carrying. Zane didn’t know how he’d retrieved it from the police station, but he’d obviously thought it a priority as he and Liam had escaped. He held it up and let it drop, holding it between two fingers by its cord.
Ava gasped and took an involuntary step back, running into Zane. He steadied her with a hand on each arm. “Well, I guess that answers that.”
“Is that like the one the cops said they found on Murdoch? Where did you get that?” Ava asked Ty, sounding as if she’d forgotten how angry she was.
“It was under my mattress,” Ty answered through gritted teeth.
She glanced between them. “Well, I didn’t do it! I didn’t even know you were in town.”
“We need a place to lay low. There are seven of us. People are after us, and so are the police.”
“Feet pue tan!” she shouted.
Ty cleared his throat, looking at Zane wryly. “She just called me a goddamned son of a bitch.”
“I like her,” Zane responded.
“You need my help? You don’t need my help, you need an army!” She shooed Ty toward the door. “I want no part in whatever you’re doing.”
“A girl was murdered last night,” Ty hissed.
“That is not my problem!” Ava shoved him toward the door, both hands on his chest. He didn’t budge, and she couldn’t make him.
“She looked like you,” Ty said loudly. He held up the bag. “She had one of these.”
Ava was breathing hard, but she stepped back and stared at the bag, then glanced over her shoulder at Zane. She looked genuinely frightened. “You think they meant to kill me?”
“Yes. The police think I killed her and Murdoch. My name was in these bags.”
“You’re being set up.”
Ty nodded. “And you know the only person who could possibly have known I was in town.”
Ava licked her lips. “Daddy.”
Ty quirked an eyebrow.
“Whoa, wait, Daddy?” Zane blurted.
Ty and Ava both nodded. Ava put a hand over her mouth.
“Now,” Ty said almost gently. “We need a place to stay for the night. They’ll never look here. Are the rooms upstairs empty?”
“Yeah,” Ava whispered. She put a hand on her hip and lowered her head like she was trying to catch her breath.
Ty met Zane’s eyes. “Call them. Let them know how to get here.”
Zane took out his phone, glancing between them as he dialed. He couldn’t wait to hear the rest of this story.
“Can you tell me about this bag?” Ty asked Ava.
Ava glowered at Ty mutinously for a few moments, then dropped her hands and gave a curt nod. “Dump it on the table. I’ll get some drinks.”
She turned on her heel and stalked back to the curtained doorway behind the bar as Zane spoke with Owen. They were the only two who had retained their phones. Once he hung up, he stared at Ty until the man met his eyes.
“Her father was my case when I was here,” Ty told him. “He’s the 8th District Police Commander. He’s dirty as all hell.”
Zane felt his blood run cold. “When you said you left a pissed off Cajun daddy down here . . .”
“I meant it. I never knew if he figured out I was his problem or not. Now I know. He probably caught wind of me when we hit the airport. We’ve been dead men walking ever since we got here.”
“Wow. And I thought I had a scary father-in-law.”
Ty rolled his eyes. He looked around the dim tavern. “Are you sure you and Becky were here?”
“Ty, I may not remember what your face looked like, but I remember this place like it was yesterday. It was you. How long were you down here?”
“Couple years.”
Zane nodded. That wasn’t unusual. It had taken him several months to establish himself in Miami. And they’d both been yanked out of their assignments: Ty because of Hurricane Katrina, Zane because he’d been arrested and had to be pulled for his own safety. When he’d been put back in, he’d discovered most of the Miami cartel still thought he had done his time in prison somewhere and his cover remained intact. Ty’s cover had weathered the storm too, and now he was back in the thick of it.
Ty was chewing on the inside of his lip, his eyes focused on the wall near the door, where an array of framed photographs lined the brick.
A crash and muttered curse came from the kitchen, then Ava stomped through the heavy curtain with a couple of bottles in her hand and a cloth thrown over her shoulder. Ty took a few steps and tossed the bag onto the table. She glared evilly and sat down in front of it, thumped the bottles down, and used the edge of the table to open one with the heel of her hand.
Zane snorted. He liked this one.
“So, Ty’s partner, tell me why you’re here.” She reached for the bag and began pulling at the strings.
Zane considered truth or evasion for a few seconds before shrugging. “We’re celebrating a birthday.”
She laid the cloth out on the table and dumped the contents of the bag onto it. She nodded but didn’t respond, fiddling with the pieces of the gris-gris bag for a few moments. “How did you find the bag?”