Sandra Hill - [Jinx 03] by Wild Jinx Read Free Book Online Page A

comedown from his red Impala convertible, that was for sure. He hadn’t been specifically identified in the article, and Tante Lulu was only a silent partner; so, he should be safe here. Still, he was taking no chances.
    “You look ridiculous,” remarked René from where he was sitting on a rocker next to his. René, who used to be an environmental lobbyist, ought to know; some of his tree hugger friends were the most ridiculous-looking in the world. In fact, they ate so much twigs and bark, aka granola, that John once told René that they looked like bushes themselves. Not René, of course; he had to be a good-looking dude to get a babe like
Trial TV
lawyer Valerie Breaux for his bride. René was going to act as part-time consultant on the job. Nothing visible. Ever since Hurricane Katrina, folks in Louisiana were more concerned about protecting the coastal wetlands and the bayous which fed into the Gulf of Mexico. René would make sure the Jinx team toed the environmental line.
    “What? You doan lak me in blond hair,
cher?
” He touched the blond wig he was wearing under a baseball cap—borrowed from Tante Lulu—and removed the black frame glasses.
    “You look like a dork. And you talk like a dork when you use that fake Cajun drawl.”
    “That’s the point.”
    “Bet it cramps your style with women.”
    “What women?”
    René’s left eyebrow rose just a fraction, a trick he’d never learned himself. “Not getting any action lately, bro? Tsk, tsk, tsk. You need some advice?”
    “Not from you.”
    Remy and Luc, sitting on the remaining rockers, laughed at the verbal sparring. They were going to help but not actively participate in the Pirate Project. Remy would be taking lots of equipment along with the project members out to the remote site in his hydroplane, in several different trips.
    His brothers were here today for no reason other than to be pains in his ass, enjoying his most recent notoriety. All of them were draining cold Dixie longnecks, the best thing on a warm Louisiana day.
    Luc pulled out the newspaper again, pointing to the infamous article. They’d been razzing him about it for the past hour. “Me, I’m just a dumb ol’ Cajun, but is this article really sayin’ you’re a cop whose job it was to have sex for money?”
    “My name wasn’t in that article. How do you know it referred to me?”
    “Puh-leeze! Man, you’ve been in some scrapes before, but this one beats them all. Talk about!” Luc, one of Louisiana’s most successful lawyers, was anything but dumb, and he was enjoying the hell out of what he called John’s latest “scrape.”
    “Scrape? Shit! You guys act as if I’m ten years old and still gettin’ into
scrapes.
”
    “Earth to Tee-John. Ten-year-olds don’t sell their bodies for money. At least, most of them don’t. Did you?” Luc blinked at him, as if his question was serious.
    “Get real! And stop callin’ me Tee-John. I’m not little anymore.” He inhaled deeply for patience, a lost cause with these three. “Not that I’m admitting that article was about me, but the undercover cops didn’t actually have sex with anyone at that club.”
    “Oh, great! Ruin a married man’s fantasy.” René pretended that he lived vicariously through John’s life, but it wasn’t true. Although he and Val, who used to be a
Trial TV
lawyer, had two preteens, Jude and Louise, and they’d been married for almost twelve years, a person only had to be in their company for a minute to see that they still had a hot sex life.
    “
Mon Dieu!
I couldn’t believe it when I saw the newspaper,” Remy added. “In fact, I was still in bed when Rachel brought the paper up to me. She was laughin’ so hard she practically peed her pants.”
    “I live to make women pee their pants.”
    No one paid any attention to him.
    “I for one would be really pissed if I was sent undercover and didn’t get any of the
undercover
benefits,” Luc said.
    “I’d like to hear you repeat that