Touch&Geaux
Authors: Unknown
Touch
&
Geaux
Cut & Run Series Book 7
By Abigail Roux
Riptide Publishing
PO Box 6652
Hillsborough, NJ 08844
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.
Touch & Geaux (Cut & Run, #7)
Copyright © 2013 by Abigail Roux
Cover Art by L.C. Cha
se, lcchase.com/design.htm
Editor: Rachel Haimowitz
Layout: L.C. Cha
se, lcchase.com/design.htm
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ISBN: 978-1-937551-86-5
First edition
April, 2013
Also available in paperback:
ISBN: 978-1-937551-87-2
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about
Touch &
Geaux
After having their faces plastered across the news during
a high-profile case, FBI Special Agents Ty Grady and Zane
Garrett have become more useful to the Bureau posing for
photo ops than working undercover. Just as Zane is beginning
to consider retirement a viable option, Ty receives a distress
call from a friend, leading them to a city rife with echoes from
the past.
New Orleans wears its history on its streets, and it’s the one
place Ty’s face could get him killed. Surrounded by trouble
as soon as they land, Ty and Zane are swiftly confronted
with a past from which Ty can’t hide—one with a surprising
connection to Zane’s.
As threats close in from all directions, both men must come
to terms with the lives they’ve led and the lies they’ve told.
They soon discover that not all their secrets are out yet, and
nothing lasts forever.
To Fate. May it treat you as well as it has me.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1
Chapter 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Chapter 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Chapter 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Chapter 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Chapter 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Chapter 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Chapter 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Chapter 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Chapter 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Chapter 11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Chapter 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Chapter 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Chapter 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
Chapter 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
ane Garrett glanced up in time to see Alston toss a
Z
balled-up scrap of paper across the pod of desks where
their team of six sat. Ty Grady threw up his arms, signaling
a touchdown as the paper skidded across his desk and into
his lap.
“Garrett, Grady, in my office,” McCoy called from his
door. He disappeared inside.
“What’d you guys do now?” Alston asked.
Zane rolled his eyes. “Wasn’t me.”
“This time,” Clancy chimed in.
“I hope it was me,” Ty said with relish. He stood and
buttoned his suit, leaving a half-finished firearms discharge
form open on his computer.
“Sometimes I wonder how far you’d go to get out of
paperwork,” Alston said.
“Watch old episodes of Pinky and the Brain and you
might get close,” Zane muttered, drawing snorts of laughter
from their other two teammates.
“Before everything went digital, I had the Bureau docs
convinced I was allergic to paper pulp,” Ty told them, dead
serious. His hazel eyes were shining. “It was beautiful.”
“You’re allergic to everything else,” Zane said as he pushed
out of his chair. “Come on. You know what he did to us the
last time we made him wait.”
“Salon appointments,” Lassiter mused.
“PR lectures,” Alston said.
1
“Enforced vacation?” Clancy added.
“Christ, I don’t know which of those is worse,” Zane said.
It was all part and parcel of being Ty Grady’s partner. And,
Zane had to be honest, some of it was his own fault too.
Ty pointed around at each of his teammates, playfully
threatening them as he trailed after Zane. He knocked on the
doorjamb, peering into the Special Agent in Charge’s office.
McCoy looked up from his computer screen and smirked.
A cold chill ran through Zane’s body. “Oh hell.”
“What now?” Ty blurted. They both knew that the look
on McCoy’s face was a harbinger of doom.
McCoy shook his head and motioned for them to come
in and close the door. Once Ty had pushed it shut, McCoy
waved two sheets of paper at them. “Several weeks ago, we
had a request put in. An unusual one, but it’s a reasonable step
toward keeping our noses clean in the press.”
“Is this more PR bullshit?” Ty asked.
“It’s not bullshit,” McCoy had the gall to say with a
straight face.
Zane sat with a deep sigh. “You’ve still got me giving
a community lecture once a month as it is. The last one?
The deputy mayor asked me if I’d speak to the Chamber of
Commerce. How am I supposed to be a discreet, undercover
criminal investigator when everyone knows who I am?”
“That’s a very good point,” Ty said.
“That’s one of the things I need to speak to you both
about. Individually. Later,” McCoy added with a more somber
cast to his face. “But for now we’ll deal with this one—very
reasonable—request.”
“Which is?” Ty asked.
“There’s a fundraising calendar being put together by a
local first responder organization.”
2
Ty stood up, holding his hand out toward McCoy as if to
ward off evil. “Hell no!”
Zane blinked. “A calendar?”
McCoy nodded. “They’re using people from state, federal,
and municipal organizations, and all proceeds are going to a
fund set up to aid first responders injured in the line of duty.”
“Admirable,” Zane said.
“You’ve both been requested as . . . models,” McCoy
managed to say without cracking a smile.
Zane looked from his partner back to McCoy. “You’re
joking.” Ty was shaking his head, thumbing through numbers
on the cell phone in his hand. Zane hadn’t even seen him pull
it out.
“I never joke,” McCoy said with a hint of mischief. He
looked to Ty. “If you’re intending to call Richard Burns to get
you out of this, I won’t have it. The Bureau needs this and
you’re the ones they want.”
Ty narrowed his eyes at McCoy, then turned his phone
off and curled his lip at Zane. There was also a hint of
apprehension in his expression, but he hid it quickly.
“We’ve been assured the photographs will be tastefully
done,” McCoy said.
“Fine,” Zane said, pointing at Ty. “Send him. But why
me?”Ty shook his head and gestured toward Zane while raising
one eyebrow at McCoy. “I think the real question is: Why
do they need me when they have such a fine specimen right
here?” he said, sounding like a used car salesman trying to sell
a Pinto.
Zane reached out and whapped Ty on the back of the
head.
3
Ty laughed and ducked away, still trying to sell Zane.
“Little bit of eyeliner, some spray tan, I mean, come on! He’s
beautiful!”
McCoy smiled, though he looked as if he was trying not
to. “Am I to assume the two of you will agree to representing
the Bureau in this?”
“I think ‘agree’ is too strong a term,” Zane said. “This is a
bad idea. Remember when we were on TV?”
“Yes, Grady got fan mail for a month.”
“I did?”
“We burned it, as you should all evil things,” McCoy
answered.
From Ty’s expression, he was trying to figure out if McCoy
was being facetious or serious.
Zane laughed and wiped his hand over his face.
“I’m not going to force you, Garrett. But I am going to
force Grady because he owes me.”
“What?” Ty shouted.
McCoy ignored him. “But I need an answer from you
right now.”
Zane was still laughing over the absurdity of the idea as he
glanced at Ty, weighing his options and wondering just what