Cry Wolf

Chapter Seventeen

They saw the commotion all the way from the dock at Frenchie's Landing. Cars were parked up and down the road. A crowd of considerable size had gathered. From that distance only the indistinct crackle of a voice could be heard through a bad speaker system; not individual words, just the rise and fall of pitch and tempo, but there was no mistaking the fact that something exciting was going on at the former Texaco station that had only yesterday stood empty across the road from Frenchie's.

Laurel glanced at Jack-something she had been avoiding doing all afternoon, since the humiliation of breaking down in front of him. His shoulders rose and fell in a lazy shrug. He was the picture of indifference with his khaki shirt hanging open, baseball cap tipped back on his head, stringer of glossy fish hanging from his fist.

He had no interest in what was going on across the road. His focus was on Laurel and the curious shyness that had come over her. He had never known a woman who didn't shed tears with gusto and impunity. Yet Laurel had shrunk from her emotional outburst-and from him-clearly embarrassed that she had shown such vulnerability in front of him.

He wondered if she ever cut herself an inch of slack. She demanded perfection of herself, a goal that was simply unattainable for any mortal human being. A trait he should have steered well clear of. Le bon Dieu knew he was the farthest thing from perfect. But he caught himself admiring her for it. She seemed so small and fragile, but she had a deep well of strength, and she went to it again and again, and accepted no excuses.

That's more than you can say for yourself, mon ami.

They crunched across the crushed shell of the parking lot another few yards, aiming for the bar, but Laurel 's gaze held fast on the goings-on across the road. Spectators milled around, craning their necks for a better look at something. An auction, perhaps, she thought, though she couldn't recall seeing anything at the old gas station worth buying. The place had been stripped bare and abandoned back in the seventies, during the oil embargo. Then one word crackled across the distance, and stopped her dead.

"… damnation!"

She sucked in an indignant breath and let it out in a furious gust. "That son of a bitch!"

Before Jack could say a word, she wheeled and made a beeline toward the station, her shoulders braced squarely, her stride quick and purposeful. He should have just let her go. He stood there for a second, intending to do just that. He wanted to drop off the fish for T-Grace and have himself a tall, cold beer. He didn't want to stick his nose into some damned hornet's nest. But as he watched Laurel stomp away, he couldn't put from his mind the image of her in his arms, weeping against his chest because she hadn't been able to give Lady Justice the miracle of sight.

Swearing under his breath, he tightened his grip on the stringer of dripping fish and jogged to catch up with her.

"He's not on the Delahoussayes' property," he pointed out.

Laurel scowled. "He'd damn well better have a lease on that place and a permit to hold a public demonstration," she snarled, secretly hoping he had neither so she could sic Kenner on him.

"You've done your part, angel," Jack argued. "You got him out of Ovide's hair-such as it is. Why you don' just leave him be and we can go have us a drink?"

"Why?" she asked sharply. "Because I'm here. I'm an officer of the court and have an obligation to the Delahoussayes." She shot him a glare. "Go have your drink. I didn't say you had to come with me."

"Espèces de tête dure," he grumbled, rolling his eyes.

"Yes, I am," she said, never slowing her stride. "Hardheadedness is one of my better qualities."

Baldwin and his followers hadn't wasted any time. The tall "For Sale or Lease" sign that had stood propped in the front window of the station had been replaced with one that read "End Sin. Find the True Path." The door to the garage was open, and a stage had been hastily built across its mouth, giving Jimmy Lee a dark, dramatic background for his ranting and pacing routine.

His followers had gathered on the cracked concrete outside, crowding together despite the heat. Many of the women pressed toward the stage for a closer look at him, their faces glowing with sunburn and adulation. And Jimmy Lee stood above them all, drenched in sweat and glory, his hair slicked back and his caps gleaming white in the late afternoon sun. He stalked across the stage, his white shirt soaked through, his tie jerked loose, pleading with his followers to march valiantly on beneath the weight of their respective crosses, urging them to lighten his load by donating to keep the ministry going.

"I will fight on, brothers and sisters! No matter how Satan may try to smite me down, no matter the obstacles in my path, no matter if I have nothing with which to fight my battle except my faith!" He let his declaration ring in the air for a few seconds, then sighed dramatically and stood with shoulders drooping. "But I don't want to fight this battle alone. I need your help, the help of the faithful, of the brave, of the devout. Sad as I am to admit it, we live in a world ruled by the almighty dollar. The ministry of the True Path cannot continue to bring the good news to untold thousands of believers each week without money. And without the ministry, I am powerless. Alone, I am only a man. With you behind me, I am an army!"

While the faithful and the devout applauded Baldwin's acting skills, Laurel skirted around the edge of the mob. She watched them with a mix of anger and pity-anger because they were gullible enough to listen to a charlatan like Baldwin, and pity for the very same reason. They needed something to believe in. She didn't begrudge them that. But that they had chosen to believe in a perverted con man made her want to knock their heads together.

She didn't see the cameras until it was too late. Her gaze caught first on the van parked alongside the garage. It bore the call letters of the Lafayette cable television station that was home to Baldwin 's weekly show. Then her eye caught one of the video cameras that was capturing the spectacle for the home audience. By then she was nearly at the front of the throng, and Baldwin had already spotted her.

His gaze, luminous gold and glowing with the light of fanaticism, flashed on her like a spotlight, and he broke off in midsentence. The anticipation level of the crowd rose with each passing second of his silence. The cheap sound system underscored it all with a low, buzzing hum.

Laurel froze, her heart picking up a beat as both the cameraman and Jimmy Lee moved toward her. She could feel the cyclops eye of the camera zooming in on her, could feel the heat of Baldwin 's gaze, could feel the additional weight of a hundred pairs of eyes as one by one the crowd turned toward her. She braced herself and drew in a slow, deep breath.

"Miz Laurel Chandler," he said softly. "A woman of intelligence and deep convictions. A good woman drawn in by deception to battle on the side of Satan."

Gasps and murmurs ran through the crowd. The woman standing closest to Laurel stepped back with a protective hand to her bosom.

"I don't think Judge Monahan will be too pleased with the comparison," Laurel said archly, crossing her arms. "But you're probably amused, being an expert at drawing in good people by means of deception, yourself."

Those close enough to hear her began to grumble and boo. Baldwin cut them off with a motion of his hand. "Condemn not, believers!" he shouted. "Christ himself, in his infinite wisdom, preached forgiveness for those who would hurt you. He has counseled me in matters of forgiveness-"

"Has He counseled you in matters of the law?" Laurel queried. "Do you have any right to be on this property, holding this assembly?"

Something ugly flashed in Baldwin 's eyes. He didn't like her interrupting his divinely inspired lines. Tough shit, Jimmy Lee.

"We have every right, lost sister," he said tightly. "We have legal rights, granted by man. We have moral rights, granted by God Himself, to gather in this humble setting and-"

"Appropriate setting," Jack drawled. He stepped around Laurel to lean indolently against the edge of Jimmy Lee's stage, the stringer of fish still swinging from his fist. "You always did give me gas, Jimmy Lee."

He was near enough that the mike picked up the last of his words, and people at the back of the crowd, who had come only out of curiosity, burst out laughing.

Jimmy Lee's face flushed a dark blood red beneath his artificial tan. His mouth quivered a little as he fought to keep from sneering at the man who was leaning lazily against his platform. Damn Jack Boudreaux. Damn Laurel Chandler. She was the troublemaker, the little bitch. Boudreaux only came along sniffing after her. But as much as he wanted to drag out all the dirt on Laurel Chandler, Jimmy Lee kept himself in check. His followers wouldn't tolerate an attack on a woman of her standing. Boudreaux, on the other hand, was a whole different breed of cat.

He smiled inwardly, a feral, vicious smile. "Do I indeed, Mr. Boudreaux?" he asked. "Shall I tell you what your books do for me? They sicken and disgust me, as they do any good Christian. The content is vile, brutal, a celebration of evil and an instruction manual in the ways of Satan. Or are you here to tell us you've given up that path of wickedness?"

A slow grin spread across Jack's face. He plopped his fish down on Jimmy Lee's wingtips, sending him scooting backward, and hopped onto the stage to sit with his legs swinging over the edge. "Well, hell, Jimmy Lee, that's sort of like askin' you if you've quit stealin' people's money. The way the question is phrased, denial is an admission of guilt. Having been an attorney in a previous incarnation, I know better than to answer." He tipped his head and treated Baldwin to a merciless, wicked grin so hard and sharp, it could have cut glass. "Me, I'm just amazed to hear you know how to read."

Another volley of laughter sounded at the back of the crowd and rippled forward. Jimmy Lee clenched his jaw against a stream of profanity. His fist tightened around his microphone while he indulged himself in the fantasy that it was Boudreaux's windpipe he was crushing.

"Evil is no laughing matter," he said sternly. He turned his gaze back out across the small sea of faces that had gathered to hear him and pointed hard at Jack. "Do we want our children growing up on the kind of twisted and depraved tales this man tells? Tales of murder and mutilation and horrors that should surely be beyond the imaginings of decent people!"

"Hey, Jack!" Leonce called out from near the dusty old gas pumps. "What's the name o' dat book?"

"Evil Illusions!" Jack called, laughing. "On sale everywhere for five ninety-nine!"

"And he laughs and makes money off this filth!" Jimmy Lee shouted to the devout above the laughter of the others. "What other sins might a sick mind like that commit? We hear every day about crimes against women and children in this country. Our own Acadiana is being terrorized by an animal who stalks and murders our women. And where do creatures like that get their ideas for their crimes?"

The grin vanished from Jack's face. He met Baldwin 's gaze evenly, never breaking the stare as he rose to his feet and closed the distance between them, booting the fish aside. Hostility rolled off him in hot waves.

"You better watch your mouth, preacher," he growled, gently pushing Baldwin 's microphone aside. "You never know what kind of revenge a sick mind like mine might come up with."

Jimmy Lee savored the small victory of striking a nerve, meeting Jack's hard stare with a smugness that came from having the safety of a crowd around him. "I'm not afraid of you, Boudreaux."

"No?" Jack arched a brow. "Are you afraid of the words 'slander suit'? You'd better be, Jimmy Lee, because I could have my lawyers tie you up in court for the rest of your unnatural life. I wouldn't leave you a pot to piss in, and this preacher act of yours will have been for nothing."

Baldwin narrowed his eyes. A muscle twitched in his jaw. "It's a free country, Boudreaux. If I think reading trash pushes unstable minds to commit unspeakable acts, I can say so."

"Uh-huh. And if you utter my name in connection with those unspeakable acts, I'll have the right to beat the ever-lovin' shit out of you-figuratively speaking." He smiled like a crocodile and lifted Jimmy Lee's hand so that the mike picked up his next words. "Mebbe you oughta try to cast the demons outta me, Jimmy Lee. Run 'em into some pigs or somethin'. Give the folks their money's worth." Baldwin glared at him. "No? Well, that's okay, Jimmy Lee."

He bent and snatched up the stringer of fish and swung them hard at Jimmy Lee. Baldwin barely had time to react, catching the slimy mass against his belly with a grunt and a grimace.

"There you go," Jack said. "Now you get yourself a couple'a loaves of bread, and mebbe you can do that miracle."

Howls of laughter went up from the back of the crowd. Laurel pressed a hand over her mouth and tried to contain herself. Jack hopped down off the stage and sauntered toward her, slipping a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and dangling it from his lip.

"You are so bad!" she whispered as he turned her by one arm and escorted her away from the crowd.

His dark eyes sparked with mischief as he slanted a look at her. "That's what makes me so good, sugar," he drawled. "Now let's go get that drink you owe me."

They hadn't taken three strides toward the road when a terrible scream split the air-piercing, blood-curdling, a sound that cut straight to the bone. Laurel pulled herself up, chilled and shaken, her hand grasping Jack's forearm, her heart thundering in her breast. She could hear the crowd behind her murmuring, gasping, shuffling their feet on the concrete as they turned. Then the scream came again and again. It emanated from Frenchie's, a terrible, keening wail, that carried in it a note instinctively understood by all, and everyone stood, breath held, waiting.

Laurel 's grip tightened on Jack's arm as she spotted the Partout Parish cruiser parked out front. Sheriff Kenner walked out of the bar and down the steps, his mirrored aviator sunglasses glinting in the sun. The side door on the building slammed, and a thin young man in surfer shorts and a neon green shirt jumped the rail and came barreling across the parking lot, running as if the devil were at his heels, his face chalk white, shirttails flying.

The front door swung open again, and T-Grace literally hurled herself out onto the gallery, screaming, "My bébé! My bébé!" She fell to her knees, smashing her fists against the floor over and over, wild, terrible sobs tearing up from her very soul. Then Ovide stumbled out onto the gallery, feeling his way like a blind man. Finding his wife with his hands, he sank down behind her, tilted his face heavenward and cried out, "Bon Dieu avoir pitié!"

"Oh, God, Jack," Laurel whispered, tears crowding her throat and pressing at her eyes. The feeling that swelled inside her as she turned toward him was unmistakably grief, and a small, disconnected part of her brain marveled at the body's ability to react so strongly to something as yet unannounced.

Seconds later the young man who had dashed out of the bar arrived with the news: Annie Delahoussaye-Gerrard, who had not been seen since Sunday night, had been found. Her nude, brutalized body had been discovered by a pair of hikers along the bank of the bayou.

The murder rocked the town of Bayou Breaux to its core. As the terror of the Bayou Strangler had gripped other parts of Acadiana, residents here had felt immune. Partout Parish had seemed a safe haven, a magical place where bad things didn't happen. In the time it took Annie Delahoussaye-Gerrard to gasp her last breath, the illusion of safety had vanished. The world tilted on its axis, and the residents of Bayou Breaux cast about frantically for something to hang on to.

That evening the streets were abandoned. Businesses closed early. People went home to be with their families. Doors that had never been locked before were bolted shut against the threat of evil that lurked along the dark, misty banks of the bayou.

T-Grace, inconsolable in her grief, had to be carried to her bed and sedated. As if the news had been carried to them on telepathic waves, the rest of the Delahoussaye children began arriving. The family banded together to mourn, to offer each other strength, to fill the tiny house where they had all been raised and try to banish the emptiness left by that one missing face.

The bar was not open, but a core of regulars gathered inside in much the same way as the Delahoussaye clan in their home. They were family of sorts-Leonce and Taureau, Dede Wilson and half a dozen others. Annie had been one of them, and now she had been torn from the fabric of all their lives, leaving a ragged, ugly hole.

Leonce took charge of the bar, dispensing drinks without a trace of his usual carefree grin. His Panama hat hung on the rack by the front door, removed out of respect, and he had traded his trademark aloha shirt for a somber black T-shirt. The rest of the group sat at or near the bar, everyone avoiding the dance floor and stage, except Jack. He sat on the piano bench, drinking Wild Turkey and playing soft sad songs on his small Evangeline accordion.

Laurel watched him from her perch on the corner bar stool. He sat with his head bent, his graceful hands working the instrument, squeezing out notes so poignant, it seemed to be weeping. He hadn't said ten words since the announcement-to her or to anyone. Despite the fact that he remained physically present, she couldn't get away from the feeling that he had gone into retreat. He had pulled in on himself and closed all doors and shutters, the same as the residents of Bayou Breaux who had locked up their homes. His face was a stark, blank mask, offering nothing, giving nothing away. There was no sign of the man who had teased her or the man who had held her while she cried. She nibbled on a thumbnail and wondered where he'd gone… and wished he hadn't gone there without her.

She felt like an outsider again. The others all had their memories of Annie to bind them together, common tales and common experiences. She hadn't known Annie. Until recently, her life had never crossed paths with any of the people who thought of a place like Frenchie's as a second home.

An old feeling came back to her from childhood, a memory of herself and Savannah dressed in their matching Sunday best, standing on the sidewalk out front of the church, watching with longing while other children ran and played in the park adjacent to the church grounds.

"Can't we play, too, Mama?"

"No, darling, you don't want to get your pretty dress all dirty, do you?" Vivian, in a red-on-white dot dress that matched her daughters', an elegant wide-brimmed white hat perched just so on her head, bent and smoothed a sausage curl behind Laurel 's ear. "Besides, sweetheart, those aren't the kind of children you should play with."

"Why not?"

"Don't be silly, Laurel." She smiled that brittle smile that always made Laurel 's tummy knot. "They're common. You're a Chandler."

A stupid memory, she thought, trying to crush the residual vulnerability. This was a time of tragedy for the Delahoussayes; she had no business feeling sorry for herself. Besides, no one in their right mind would want to be included among the mourners.

"Here you go."

Laurel looked up and blinked at the tumbler of milk Leonce had set on the bar before her.

"My grandpapa, he had an ulcer," he said softly. He put his elbows on the bar and leaned toward her, a knowing look raising one dark eyebrow and the knot of scar tissue that interrupted it. "He used to rub his belly same as what you're doin'. When he ran out of the cabbage juice the local traiteur used to give him, he drank milk."

Laurel shot a guilty glance at the hand she had absently pressed to her middle. "I'm fine," she said, wrapping both hands around the cold glass. "But thank you, anyway, Leonce."

He took a deep drag on his cigarette and sighed out a cloud of pale smoke, staring across the room at nothing. "I can't believe she's gone, snatched away from us just like dat," he said, snapping his fingers.

"Were you close?"

He smiled sadly. "Ever 'body loved Annie."

Laurel sipped her milk and looked at Jack out of the corner of her eye, wondering if he had loved Annie. "She was married, wasn't she?"

"Oh, yeah, but Tony, he didn' treat her good, so all bets were off, if you get my drift."

He took another pull on his smoke and crushed the butt out in a Jax Beer ashtray. Lost in memories for a moment, he lifted a hand to rub absently at the scar on his cheek. "Annie, she liked to pass a good time," he murmured. "She wasn' a bad girl. She just liked to pass a good time, is all."

Meaning she cheated on her abusive husband. Automatically, Laurel 's mind sorted and filed the facts, formulated theories. Old habit. Comforting in its way. There was solace, consolation to be found in making sense of tragedy. Murders could be solved. Justice could be served.

But nothing would ever bring Annie back.

The side door near the kitchen opened, and Ovide stumbled in like a zombie. He looked twenty years older and frail, despite his bulk. The hair that fringed his head stood out in an aura of silver. The ruddy color had leeched out of his face, leaving his skin a ghostly shade of gray.

Talk stopped, and everyone looked to him expectantly. Everyone except Jack, who hunched over his accordion, playing "Valse de Grand Mèche." Ovide just stood there looking lost and confused, as if he had no idea where he was or what he was doing there. Leonce went to him and took hold of his arm, speaking to him softly in French. He didn't appear to listen, but looked around the bar at the people who had gathered to talk, at Jack, who had set himself apart. Finally, his gaze settled on Laurel.

"Viens ici, chérie," he murmured, holding a hand out toward her. "T-Grace, she wants to see you."

Laurel just barely kept from looking over her shoulder to see if there was a more likely person standing behind her. "Me?" she murmured, touching her chest.

"Oui, come. Please."

With a heavy, black feeling of foreboding pressing down on her, and with the ironic thought that she was going to be included after all, she slid down off her stool.

They entered the Delahoussaye home through the kitchen, which proved to be the largest room of the house. Inappropriately cheerful and bright, the rich aroma of coffee and the spicy bite of étouffée lingered in the air. The walls sported yellow-and-white checked paper and a boggling array of knickknacks that ranged from plastic praying hands to thimbles from Las Vegas to salt-and-pepper sets in the guise of squirrels and chickens-all of it striking Laurel as being painfully sweet and too revealing about the woman who had raised her children in this house.

Delahoussaye children and grandchildren filled the benches at the long harvest table in the center of the room. Sleepy-eyed children sat on the laps of parents or elder siblings. The glare of the fluorescent light washed the color from all their faces, emphasizing eyes that had been cried raw and red. Laurel envied them their family, but not the grief that hung like a pall around them.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, apologizing for both their loss and her intrusion on this private time.

Her words triggered a flood of tears from a woman who might have been Annie's twin-apple cheeks and corkscrew curls, a tank top two sizes too small. A brawny husband folded his arms around her and the dark-haired baby who sat on her lap and rocked them both. At the other end of the table, a younger version of T-Grace stood abruptly and looked straight at Laurel.

"Thank you for coming," she said automatically. "I'll make us a fresh pot of coffee."

She set about the task with the frenetic energy of someone trying to keep a step ahead of inner demons. Laurel recognized the signs from experience, and she felt empathy drawing on her, pulling at her limited reserve of strength.

She followed Ovide through the cramped living room, where two boys of about ten sat on the floor watching an age-old rerun of Star Trek on a television that had the sound turned so low, the actors seemed to be whispering. A toddler had been settled to sleep on the green plaid sofa with a nubby orange afghan covering all but her face and the fist pressed against her mouth as she sucked her thumb.

T-Grace lay in bed in a room that would have been considered a closet at Beauvoir. Meager light from a red glass Spanish-look lamp on the nightstand glowed off the imitation walnut paneling that displayed gold plastic candle sconces and gaudy metal butterflies. The smell of mothballs and cheap perfume permeated the air. Clothes were folded and stacked in precariously tipping piles on every available surface, giving the cramped little room the feel of a storage cupboard at the Salvation Army store.

When Laurel stepped through the door, her breath caught hard in her throat. Her first thought was that T-Grace had died of shock and heartbreak, and she could only wonder why Ovide had dragged her over here to view the body. The woman lay propped against half a dozen pillows, her bulging eyes staring into nothingness, her thin mouth hanging slack, as if she had been stricken down midsentence. Her orange hair stood up in thin, ratty tufts around her head. Then she stirred, lifting a hand from the green chenille bedspread, and Laurel forced herself to move farther into the room.

"I'm so sorry, T-Grace," she said softly as she took the woman's hand and settled a hip on the edge of the bed.

T-Grace rolled her head from side to side on the pillow, too sedated to do much more. "My poor, poor bébé. She's gone from us. Gone from dis world," she mumbled. "I can't bear it."

"You should try to rest," Laurel whispered, unable to find adequate words that could soothe a mother's suffering.

"There is no pain like to lose a child," T-Grace said, her eyes filling. She made no move to brush the tears away. They spilled down her sunken cheeks and trickled back along her jaw. What little energy she had left she concentrated into speech. "I would give myself a hundred times in her place."

Laurel bit her lip and held tight to the hand that seemed so frail in hers.

"Someone gotta pay for dis."

"They'll catch the man," Laurel said thickly, to placate T-Grace and to reassure herself. Someone would pay. Justice would triumph in the end. It had to.

But not soon enough for Annie.

T-Grace looked her square in the face, a glimmer of her old fire flickering in her eyes. "You gonna help us wit' dat, chère, or what?"

Panic booted Laurel in the stomach. "What can I do, T-Grace? I'm not a deputy. You don't need a lawyer." You don't need me. Please, please, don't ask me to get involved in this.

"My Ovide and me, we don' trust dat jackass Kenner," T-Grace said. "You go, you make sure he's doin' right by our poor bébé Annick."

Laurel shook her head. "Oh, T-Grace-"

T-Grace gathered the last of her strength and lunged ahead, grasping at Laurel with hands as cold and bony as death. "Please, Laurel, help us!" she exclaimed, desperation ragged in her voice. "Please, chère, s'il vous plait!"

The words rang in Laurel 's head, clashing with the pleas she heard every night in her sleep. She pushed herself to her feet as T-Grace fell back on the pillows, and backed away from the bed, fighting to keep herself from running out. Tears crowded her eyes and throat, and she tried to fight them back with reason. This wasn't the same as Scott County. She wouldn't be taking on the investigation or trying to shoulder the burden of proof. All they were asking was that she keep an eye on things for them.

Still, her first, her strongest instinct was to say no, to protect herself.

Selfish. Coward. Weak.

"Please, help us, Laurel…"

"You'll never be able to get justice for those children… go and get justice for somebody else…"

She looked at T-Grace, lying on the bed like a corpse, her incredible energy sapped from her by grief. Then she turned to Ovide, who stood in the doorway, looking old and lost and helpless. She had the power to help them in some small way-if she could get past her own weakness.

"I'll do what I can."

Jack had forsaken the accordion for the piano by the time Laurel came back to the bar. His fingers moved slowly, restlessly, caressing the keys. His head was tipped back, his eyes closed. The old upright piano that was more accustomed to belting out boogie-woogie whispered the opening movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, dark, brooding, quiet, sad.

The last of the people who had gathered to talk were on their way out the front door as Laurel walked in the side. Only Jack remained, and Leonce, who was turning out lights and putting the chairs up, sweeping as he went.

He glanced up at her, leaning against his broom, his scarred face in the shadows, a Dixie sign glowing red neon behind him. "Hey, chère, you want a ride home?" he asked softly. "Me, I don' think ol' Jack oughta get behind a wheel, you know?"

"That's okay, Leonce," she murmured. "We didn't drive. A long walk will do us both good."

He dropped his gaze to the broom bristles and started sweeping again before she could read anything in his expression. "Suit yourself."

Laurel tucked her hands in the pockets of her shorts and wandered to the stage. Jack made no move to acknowledge her presence, even when she sat down beside him on the piano bench. He went on playing like a man in a trance, his long fingers stroking the yellowed keys with the care of a lover. The song rose and fell, melodies twining around one another, wrapping around Laurel and drawing her into another world, a world of stark poignancy and bittersweet emotion. Every note swelled with longing. A crushing pain filled the silences in between.

This was what hid behind the other Jack, the man with the haunted eyes and the aura of danger-loneliness, anguish, artistry. The realization struck a chord deep within her, and she closed her eyes against the pain. How many other layers were there? How many Jacks? Which one was at the core of the man? Which one held his heart?

She closed her mind to the questions and lay her head against his shoulder, too overwhelmed by feelings to think. She had held herself in tight check all evening, not allowing herself to react to Annie's murder or any of the emotions that had tried to surface since. But now, with no witnesses except a man who had already seen her cry, she stopped fighting. The feelings rushed up through her chest to her throat and clogged there in a hard lump. The tears came, not in a torrent, but in a painful, stingy trickle, spiking her lashes and dampening her cheeks.

Jack's hands slowed on the keyboard as the piece softened to its close. His fingers crept down to touch the final note, a low minor chord that vibrated and hung in the air like the echo of a voice from the dark past.

"Did you care about her?" Laurel asked, the question slipping out without her permission. Her breath held fast in anticipation of his answer.

"You mean, did I sleep with her?" Jack corrected her. He stared at the black upper panel of the piano, willing himself to see nothing, not the wood, not the ghost of Annie's sunny smile, nothing. "Yeah, sure," he said, his voice flat, emotionless. "A couple times."

His answer stung, though she told herself it shouldn't have. He was a rake, a womanizer. He'd probably slept with half the women in the parish. It shouldn't have meant anything to her. She pushed the reaction aside and tried to decipher what he might be feeling in the aftermath of the death of a woman he had known-intimately-whose parents were friends of his.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Be sorry for Annie, not for me. I'm alive." For all the good he did anybody. His mouth twisted at the irony, and he reached for his whiskey to numb the ache. The liquor went down, as smooth as silk, to pool in his belly and send a familiar warmth radiating outward.

"I'm sorry for T-Grace and Ovide," Laurel said, recalling too vividly the scene that had been played out on the gallery, remembering too clearly the desperation in T-Grace as she begged for help. "They asked me to be their liaison with the sheriff."

"And you agreed."

"Yes."

"Naturally."

Even though he settled his fingers on the piano keys once again and started to play something slow and bluesy, she caught the caustic note in his voice. Slowly she straightened away from him, her gaze hard and direct. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Jack didn't bother looking at her. He could feel the defensiveness going up like a wall around her, just as he had intended. "It means you're a good little girl, doin' the right thing."

"They're friends," she said shortly. "They asked me for a favor. It seemed a small enough thing to give them in light of the fact that their daughter has just been murdered. They don't understand police procedure. They don't trust the system to work for them."

"Imagine that," he drawled sardonically.

Laurel bristled. "You know, I'm sick of your smart-ass remarks, Jack. It may not be perfect, but it's the only system we've got. It's up to people like you and me to make it work."

He went on playing, wishing it would release some of the tension that was coiling inside him like a copperhead about to strike. He was feeling mean. He was feeling too sensitive, as if all his nerve endings had been exposed and rubbed raw. His strongest instinct was not to let anyone near. He wanted to draw himself into that small, dark room inside himself, as he had when he'd been a boy waiting for the thundering hand of Blackie Boudreaux to come down on him. He wanted to go to that place where no one could touch him, no one could hurt him, where he couldn't feel and didn't care.

But Laurel Chandler sat beside him, prim and properly affronted by his lack of faith in her precious system of jurisprudence. Damn her.

"It didn't work very well for you, did it, 'tite chatte?"

The slyness in his tone cut Laurel to the quick, and pain flowed through her at the thought that she had shared that experience with him-had trusted him with that fragile, damaged part of her heart-only to have him use it against her.

"Fine," she said. She hit the keyboard with her fists, pounding out a discordant tangle of notes as she rose from the bench. "The system sucks. So we should just throw our hands up and let crime run rampant?" She paced behind him, trying to channel the hurt into anger. An argument was something she could grasp and wield with skill. More productive than grief or fear. "That would be great, Jack. Then we could all do what you do-sit around and do nothing while our society comes apart at the seams."

He arched a brow as he swung around on the bench to face her. Stretching out with deceptive laziness, he leaned his elbows back against the piano and crossed his ankles in front of him. "What?" he demanded belligerently. "You think I should do somethin'? What would you have me do? Wave a wand and bring Annie back to life? I can't. Shall I look into a crystal ball and see who killed her? I can't do that, either. See, sugar? It's like my old man always told me-I'm just fuckin' good for nothin'."

"How convenient for you," Laurel snapped, ignoring the softer part of her heart that ached for Jack the abused child. She was too angry with him to feel sympathy. He reminded her too much of Savannah, wallowing in the polluted waters of her past instead of picking herself up and doing something positive with her life. "You don't have to take responsibility for anything. You don't have to aspire to anything. If the going gets tough, you can always turn around and blame your past. You don't have time to care about anyone else because you're so damn busy feeling sorry for yourself!"

He was on his feet and towering over her so quickly, she barely had time to suck in a breath of surprise. Common sense demanded she back away from him, the way she might back away from a panther encountered in the wild. But a deeper instinct made her hold her ground, and a tense, itchy silence descended between them.

He stared at her long and hard, his chest heaving with temper, his jaw set so rigid that the scar on his chin glinted like silver in the faint light. But the fire that had flared in his dark eyes died slowly, leaving that age-old abject weariness. The corners of his mouth cut upward in a bitter imitation of a smile.

"You don' want me to care about you, sugar," he murmured. "Everybody I ever cared about is dead." He raised a hand to caress her cheek, and she started at his touch. "See? I told you I'd be bad for you. You should have listened."

She batted his hand away and took a step back. He was trying to frighten her. The same man who had only hours ago wooed her with his wicked smile-No. Not the same man.

Angry with his chameleon act, angry that he would try to scare her, angry with herself for giving a damn what he did, she gave him one last look of defiance. "Play your games with someone else, Jack. I'm going home."

He watched her hop down off the stage and head for the front door, telling himself to let her go, telling himself he was better off not caring that she would walk out into the night alone. But he couldn't quite pull the door shut on that little room. He couldn't quite get the images out of his mind-Annie… Evie… Lost forever. The need to protect Laurel pulled against the need to protect himself, stretching his nerves as taut as violin strings, and he trembled with the tension of it, waiting for the thread to simply snap.

Laurel kept on walking, her head up, her slim shoulders squared, her tiny feet barely making a sound as her sneakers struck the floor. So small, so fragile, so fiercely determined to take on every rotten thing the world tossed her way.

Swearing under his breath, Jack jumped off the stage. He caught up with her in half a dozen strides and grabbed hold of her arm, halting her progress toward the door.

"I'll walk you."

"Why?" she demanded, glaring up at him. "What are you going to do, Jack? Protect me? You just finished telling me how dangerous you are. Why would I go with you, anyway? You're drunk."

His hand tightened on her arm. His temper boiled hotter, harder as the warring factions within him fought between the urge to throttle her or crush her against him.

"I'm not that drunk," he growled. "I said, I'll walk you home."

"And I asked you why," Laurel said, too angry to be cautious. A small, rational corner of her brain told her she was taunting a tiger, but she didn't listen. Something inside her was pushing her to recklessness. She didn't understand it, wasn't sure she wanted to understand it, but she couldn't seem to stop it. "Why?"

His nostrils flared. His brows pulled ominously low over his eyes. He looked like the devil glaring down at her, the hard planes and angles of his lean face cast in sharp relief. "Don't be stupid. Women are gettin' killed. Do you wanna be one of them?"

"What's it to you one way or the other, Jack?" she returned. "You don't care about anyone but yourself. After they find my body, you can drink a quart of Wild Turkey in my honor and tell people you slept with me a couple of times."

The leash on his control stretched to the breaking point. Rage rumbled through him like thunder, shaking him, swelling in his chest, roaring in his ears. He gripped her shoulders with both hands, trembling with the need to shake her like a rag doll and hurl her aside, out of his life.

"Damn you," he snarled, not even sure whether he was cursing Laurel or himself. "If you wanted an idealist, you shoulda gone shoppin' in a better neighborhood, sugar. I'm a bastard and a user and a cynic-"

"Why do you want to walk me home, Jack?" she demanded, matching him glare for glare.

"Because I've got enough corpses on my conscience to last me!"

A thick, heavy silence hung in the air around them as their gazes held. Jack's expression was fierce, wild. His fingers bit into the tender flesh of Laurel 's upper arms. She had the feeling that he could have snapped her in half like a twig. She had never been quite so aware of the differences in their sizes, had never felt quite so physically fragile.

"I've got enough corpses on my conscience to last me…" The words sank into her brain one by one to be scrutinized, and a chill ran through her.

She stared at him for a long moment, watching him struggle to rein back the beast that was his temper. As his breathing slowed, she forced herself to relax by degrees, and breathed easier herself as his grip loosened.

"Would you care to elaborate on that statement?" she asked softly.

Very deliberately he lifted his hands from her shoulders and turned away from her. "No, I wouldn't," he said, and he headed for the door.

They walked the dark, deserted streets to Belle Rivière in silence, not speaking, not touching. Jack had closed himself off entirely. Laurel watched him surreptitiously, wondering, the wheels of her lawyer's mind whirling as she scrambled for a logical explanation, her heart swearing there had to be one.

He walked her to the courtyard and held the gate open for her. She stepped into the garden, trying desperately to think of something to say that would somehow ease the tension between them, but when she turned to say it, he was gone. Without a word he had slipped into the black shadows of the trees that stood between Belle Rivière and L'Amour.

Time slipped by unnoticed as she stood with her hands wrapped around the iron bars of the gate, staring toward the brick house that stood on the bank of the bayou. No lights came on in the windows.

"Everyone I ever cared about is dead."

"I've got enough corpses on my conscience to last me…"

Who had he lost? Who had he cared about? Why were their deaths on his conscience?

The only thing she knew for certain was that it wasn't wise of her to want that knowledge. She had all she could handle just getting herself from one day to the next. She didn't need the kind of trouble that was brewing between herself and Savannah. She didn't want to get involved with the Delahoussayes or a murder investigation. She wasn't strong enough to endure a relationship with a man like Jack. He had too many facets, too many secrets, too many shadows in his past, too much darkness in his soul.

And still she felt attraction to him pulling on her like a magnetic force.

"Oh, God," she whispered, closing her eyes and pressing her forehead against the cool iron bars of the gate. "I never should have come back here."

A scrap of cloud scudded across the sliver of moon. A sultry breeze whispered through the branches of the trees. A chill raced over Laurel 's flesh, and she looked up abruptly, sensing… something. She strained her eyes, staring into the darkness, seeing nothing, but sensing… a presence. The sensation lingered like a dark, intent gaze, and the hair rose on the back of her neck.

"Jack?" she called, a faint quiver of doubt vibrating in her voice.

Silence.

"Jack? Huey?"

Nothing but the heavy feeling of eyes.

Somewhere in the woods beyond L'Amour a screech owl called, its voice like a woman's scream. Laurel swallowed hard as her heart climbed into her throat. Slowly, she backed toward the house, sliding her feet on the uneven brick pathway to keep from tripping. As she scanned the shadows of the courtyard for unfamiliar shapes, she chided herself for spooking so easily, trying not to think about the fact that Annie's body had been discovered not so very far from here.

It seemed to take forever to reach the gallery, but when she did, she felt like a child reaching the safe place in a game of tag. Relief swirled through her in a dizzying wave as she slipped into the house and locked the French doors behind her.

The predator is cloaked in shadows. A creature of the night. A creature of darkness. Watching. Waiting. Contemptuous. Smug.

The adversary has been chosen. Good, golden, champion of justice. But goodness and justice have nothing to do with this game. In this game, only the strong and the clever survive.