Picture Her Bound-epub Read Free

, I’m getting real tired of this snit you’re in. We don’t know each other well, so you got to use words. I can’t read your damn mind.”
    “I worked a double, went home and ate a frozen dinner with my dog.” She sounded defensive, as if there were something to find fault with in her story. He’d expected her to go home to a large Cajun family, fried turkey, gumbo, the whole nine yards. She seemed like the kind of girl who’d be surrounded by a whole clan.
    “I spent yesterday and today doing a little sleuthing.” Bounty hunters were police in a different uniform with a different set of duties. Jacques had a private investigator license and clocked as many hours in detective work as most cops. Besides, it had given him something to do on Christmas besides watch parades on TV.
    “What did you find?” Odalia perked up.
    “Now you want to hear what I have to say?” He chuckled at her frown. “The studio building I rented for the shoot doesn’t have security cameras, but there’s a place down the street that has one pointed out their front window.”
    “What did you get?” She leaned forward.
    “Male, dark-skinned, scaling the fence with Kenny’s jacket. It’s poor quality, but the man’s not white.” And Kenny was a white redneck from up the bayou.
    “Damn.” Odalia slumped back on the couch and blew out a breath. “That’s it?”
    “It’s enough of a reason to stop intimidating a snitch and risk losing your badge over it.”
    She didn’t respond for a moment, and he let her stew in her mess. This couldn’t have been her proudest moment, and he felt for her, but not enough to put up with crap.
    “How did you find me?” She glanced at him from the corner of her eye.
    The little lady was moving on. Good. He’d like to work with her on this, be there for her, and not just because it was partially his fault for not being more security-conscious. More thefts happened during the holiday season than any other.
    “I was looking for you.”
    “And you just happened to find me on Bourbon Street?”
    “What can I say? I’m good at what I do.”
    She didn’t chuckle as he’d hoped she might.
    “What do we do next?”
    Finally, thinking as a team.
    “If you were me interviewing a victim, what questions would you ask?”
    Odalia flinched at the word victim . Right. Removing from his vocabulary.
    She blew out a breath. “I’d ask if I have anyone who would want to hurt me. If I owed someone money. If I pissed anyone off.” She shrugged. “I’m a cop. I piss everyone off.”
    “But who would know you well enough to also know about your lifestyle?” That was the kicker, why he’d needed to circle back to Odalia. He hoped to tie up the whole mess so he could get on to what he wanted. Her.
    Her brows lifted, and she glanced at him, something close to excitement lighting her gaze. “What if it was the camera they’re after and not the pictures at all?”
    He nodded. “I thought of that too. We may be running around like chickens with our heads cut off for nothing. The SD card could be in a garbage can somewhere. Let’s go over everything from the beginning.”
    “You want to create a timeline?” Her brows rose.
    “I do.” They should have done this earlier.
    “Okay, you were first to arrive at the studio, at what time?” She grabbed a pad of paper and pen he’d left on the coffee table and started jotting it all down.
    “Three o’ clock.” He’d arrived excited and a tad bit nervous. Photography was a hobby he was getting serious about. The shoot with Odalia was one he’d been preparing for, waiting until he found the right model. And she’d been right under his nose all along.
    “I got there a little before three thirty. Nothing seemed odd.” She tapped the paper, her gaze going slightly unfocused. And with good reason.
    “I locked the doors behind us. From three thirty until about four fifteen, we negotiated the photo shoot.” Jacques’ blood stirred at the memory of such