“And where is that scheduled to take place tonight?”
“An old house in the French Quarter that has been converted to a bed-and-breakfast. It’s supposed to be haunted, of course.”
He pounced on her choice of words. “You don’t buy into the haunted bit?”
“I suspect the owner is mainly interested in getting free publicity for her business. I thought the legend of the ghost in her parlor that she submitted to the show was pretty thin. It felt made up to me when I first heard it, and our researcher in New York wasn’t able to find any record of this supposed ghost anywhere else.”
His mouth twitched, but he asked seriously enough, “Are some ghost stories not made up?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t get me started. Gary is a hard-core believer, but in my three years with him, I have yet to see a real ghost.”
“Thank God,” Bass muttered under his breath. She wasn’t sure whether or not she was supposed to have heard that remark, but she responded to it anyway.
“You didn’t think I actually believe in all this woo-woo stuff, did you?” She burst out laughing at the notion. “Filming America’s Ghosts is just a job...in an industry where getting steady work is a rare gift.”
He grinned. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear that.” Their gazes met and the sparks exploded again. Lord, he was attractive. And this funny, friendly version of him was darned near irresistible. Men never flirted with her. She was the mousy one they looked past to find the hot girls.
“I thought folks in New Orleans were superstitious,” she countered. “That they go for voodoo and fortune-tellers and ghosts.”
“I’m not from New Orleans. I’m from the low country west of the city.”
“As in bayous and alligators?” Her eyes went wide. No thank you to either of those!
He grinned broadly. “Everyone gets all hepped up about a few bitty ole’ gators. You stay out of their way, they’ll pretty much stay out of yours.”
“They still scare me to death,” she declared. “They eat people.”
“Only the big ones actually eat people. The smaller ones might bite your leg off or take a chunk out of your side, but they can’t swallow you whole.”
She snorted. “If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re failing spectacularly.”
He shrugged. “Gators are primitive, and they are predators. But they’re not completely stupid. And they perceive us as predators in return. They honestly do try to stay out of our way for the most part. Now, if you want to worry about critters where I come from, those would be snakes. We’ve got ’em all. Copperheads, cottonmouths, even rattlesnakes. Sometimes they’re so thick you can’t go thirty feet without seeing one.”
“Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. I do not do snakes.”
He laughed. “City slicker.”
“Guilty as charged. I’m a city girl all the way.” She slugged down the last of her coffee and finished off her beignet with a lick of her fingers.
“What would you normally be doing at this time of day?” Bass inquired.
“Sleeping. We work late at night, and I often sleep till noon.”
“God, that sounds decadent,” he mumbled.
“It is. Then I get up, go for a run, eat, and spend the afternoon editing dailies.”
“Dailies?”
“The raw footage I shot the night before. I do a rough cut and pull together all the best footage, then I send that video and the rest of the raw video to the post-production folks back in New York. They create the finished show.”
“Do you want to go back to your place now and crawl into bed for a few hours?”
Her shocked gaze shot to his. She swore she caught a momentary glint of amusement behind those bright blue eyes, but she couldn’t be sure. Jeez, Carrie. Not everything the poor man says is an invitation to have sex. She must be even more attracted to him than she realized—or admitted to herself.
“Umm, no. No time to sleep,” she answered belatedly. “I’m going to have to reschedule tonight’s show shoot until tomorrow and hope Gary turns up in the meantime. Besides, I’m too worried to sleep, and that cup of coffee’s gonna keep me revved up for a few hours.”
“Then how about we head back to Pirate’s Alley? You can walk me through what happened.”
Like she was going to refuse to cooperate with the police investigation? She followed in his wake as Bass elbowed his way through the morning coffee crush, and she breathed a sigh of relief as they stepped onto the sidewalk once more. Along with her fear of snakes, she wasn’t a particular fan of being crushed in crowds. She supposed that came from being small and easy to overlook.
“Claustrophobic?” Bass murmured.
“How did you know?”
“The look of relief on your face when we made it out of that crowd.”
Note to self: the cop is definitely as observant as I am.
“Jackson Square’s not far from here,” he said. “Are you up for a walk?”
Stretching her legs after all the stress of the past few hours, maybe burning off a little adrenaline, sounded great. She nodded and he headed out.
She was impressed that he shortened his stride so she could keep up. Thank God. She hated having to racewalk or half jog to keep up with people.
The pedestrians crowding the sidewalks all appeared to have places to go and things to do, ignoring each other and barely noticing the elegant old city they passed through. As for her, she couldn’t keep her gaze from straying up to the wrought-iron balconies and tall, shuttered window casements. Goodness, this city was photogenic.
“Tell me about yourself,” Bass asked.
“Not much to tell.” She clammed up out of habit. Police were bad. Say nothing to them.
“Let me rephrase that. What’s the research going to tell me when my people are done looking you up?”
“Why are you going to look me up?” she demanded. “That’s an invasion of privacy!”
“This is a police investigation, Miss Price.”
“Call me Carrie. Miss Price makes me sound like an old lady.”
“Only if you’ll call me Bastien. Or Bass.”
She mumbled an affirmative. But it felt weird to think of calling this intimidating detective by his first name. The flirty guy had definitely given way to the cop as soon as they left the restaurant. His jaw had gone hard again, and he was back to asking her pointed questions and then staring a hole through her when she answered him.
“You’re dodging my question, Carrie. Who are you?”
He was totally right, of course. She was dodging him. “What do you want to know about me?” she asked, feeling surly.
“Where are you from?”
“Born and raised in New York, north of Albany.”
“Your whole life?”
“Yup.”
“Do you like snow?”
“Hate it,” she replied with genuine passion.
“Me too. Miserable stuff to crawl around in.”
“When did you figure that