Cry Wolf

Chapter Twenty-Two

Kenner lit his fifth cigarette of the day and sucked in a lungful of tar and nicotine. His eyeballs felt as if they'd been gone over with sandpaper, his vocal cords as if they'd grown bark. He had ice picks stabbing his brain and a stomach full of battery acid disguised as coffee. In comparison, a rabid dog had a pleasant attitude. He was getting nowhere with the Gerrard murder, and it pissed him off like nothing else-except maybe Laurel Chandler.

He stared at her through the haze of smoke that hovered over his cluttered desk, his eyes narrowed to slits, his mouth twisting at the need to snarl.

"So you think Baldwin killed your sister and all them other dead girls?"

Laurel bit back a curse. Her fingers tightened on the arms of the visitor's chair. "That isn't what I said."

"Hell, no," Kenner barked, shoving to his feet. "But that's what you meant."

"It is not-"

"Jesus, I've been just waiting to hear this-"

"Then why don't you listen?"

"-haven't I, Steve?"

Danjermond, lounging against a row of putty-color file cabinets, tightened his jaw at the shortening of his name. Kenner didn't notice. He'd been looking for an excuse to blow off some steam. First someone had the balls to kill a woman in his jurisdiction. Then he'd had to let Tony Gerrard walk. Then every hoped-for lead had piddled into nothing. Now this. He let his temper have free rein, not giving a damn that Laurel Chandler was connected. Ross Leighton himself said the girl was a troublemaker, said she always had been.

"I've just been waiting for you to come charging in here, pointing fingers and naming names."

"I'm only trying to give you information. It's my civic duty-"

"Fuck that, lady." He cut her off, leaning over the desk to tap his cigarette off in the ashtray. "You're trying to make trouble, same as you did up in Georgia. Point your finger, shoot your mouth off, get your name in the paper. You get off on that or something?"

Laurel ground her teeth and cut a look Danjermond's way, wondering why the hell he didn't do something. "I never said Baldwin killed anyone. I just thought you might like to know-"

"That he's some kind of pervert. A preacher." Kenner snorted his derision and shook his head as he pulled hard on his smoke. "What was it up in Georgia? A dentist? A banker? Is there anyone you don't suspect of being a pervert?"

"Well, I doubt you are," Laurel snapped, coming up out of her chair. She planted her hands on Kenner's littered desktop and met him glare for glare. "Why should you resort to perversity when you obviously have a license to fuck over anyone you want!"

While Kenner snarled and foamed at the mouth, her gaze cut again to Danjermond, who had the gall to be amused with her. She could see it in the translucent green depths of his eyes, in the way the corners of his mouth flicked upward ever so slightly. He roused himself from his stance against the file cabinets and came forward, turning his attention on Kenner.

"Now, Duwayne," he said calmly. "Miz Chandler came in here with the best of intentions. If she believes she has information pertinent to the case, you ought to listen."

"Pertinent to the case!" Kenner made a contemptuous sound in his throat and smashed out his cigarette in the overflowing plastic ashtray. "Savannah Chandler says the preacher gets off on tying women up. Savannah Chandler. Jesus, everyone in town knows she's got screws as loose as her morals!"

Fury misting her vision red, Laurel all but dove for his throat. "You son of a bitch!"

Kenner shrugged. "Hey, I'm not saying anything that idn't common knowledge."

"But you're not saying it very tactfully," Danjermond pointed out, frowning.

"Shit, I don't have time to be David Fucking Niven. I've got a murder to solve." He snagged another Camel from the pack and lit it with a match, his gaze hard on Laurel. "Leave the investigating to me, Ms. Chandler."

"Fine," Laurel said through her teeth. "But it would probably be helpful if you would take your head out of your ass so you could see to do it."

Kenner's color deepened to burgundy. He snatched his cigarette from his lip and shook it at her, raining ash down on his desktop and the drift of papers strewn across it. "You want a little advice on where you might find your sister? I wouldn't look any farther than a few dozen bedrooms."

"And that's what you would have said about Annie Gerrard, too, isn't it?" Laurel felt a little surge of triumph as the hit scored. A muscle flexed in Kenner's jaw, and he glanced away. "Yeah, Annie liked to sleep around a little. Look where they found her."

Kenner turned his back on her and stared out through the slats in the crooked venetian blind. Danjermond came around the end of the desk and caught her gently by the arm. "Perhaps it would be better if you and I discussed this in my office, Laurel."

Gracefully, he turned her toward the door and ushered her into the outer office, where Kenner's secretary, Louella Pierce, sat with nail file in hand, absorbing every detail of the melee so she would be able to relate it blow by blow to everyone in the break room. A couple of uniformed officers looked up from the paperwork on their desks with smirks on their faces.

Adrenaline still pumping, Laurel glared at them. "What the hell are you looking at?"

Eyebrows shot up as heads ducked down. Danjermond continued into the hall without pause, herding her along. His grip on her arm seemed deceptively light, but when she tried to discreetly pull away, she couldn't.

"I'll thank you to let me go, Mr. Danjermond," Laurel said softly, angrily, her eyes flashing fiercely as she looked up at him. "I didn't appreciate your little Good Cop-Bad Cop routine back there. I'm not some wide-eyed civilian walking in here with a head full of gossip."

"No," he said calmly, never altering his stride or his expression, but there was something hard in his gaze as he glanced down at her. "You're a former prosecutor with a reputation for making allegations you can't back up. How did you expect him to react?"

There was considerable activity in the hall. Court was in session, but in addition to the usual cadre of attorneys and clerks and stenographers, there were reporters hovering like vultures, waiting for some meat on the latest of the Bayou Strangler's cases. Laurel sensed their presence. Her stomach tightened, and the hair on the back of her neck rose as she felt eyes turn her way-eyes that brightened with feral anticipation at the sight of her walking arm in arm with the parish's golden boy district attorney. Just as in old times, they homed in, scrambling to switch on tape recorders, fumbling for pencils and notebooks. They came forward in a rush, sound bursting out of them like a television that had suddenly been turned on high volume.

"Mr. Danjermond!"

"Ms. Chandler!"

"-is there any connection-?"

"-are you aiding in the investigation-?"

"-have there been any new leads-?"

Danjermond walked on, calm as Moses strolling through the Red Sea. "No comment. We have no comment to make at this time. Ms. Chandler has no comment."

Hating herself for it, Laurel leaned into him and let him take the brunt of the media storm. He guided her into his outer office, and while he dealt the press a final, frustrating "No comment" at the door, she made a beeline past the curious gaze of his secretary and went into the quiet of his inner sanctum.

The details of the office penetrated only peripherally-hunter green walls, heavy brass lamps, dark leather chairs, the smell of furniture polish and cherry tobacco, a place for everything and everything in its place. The shades were drawn, giving the room the feeling of twilight. The mood of the room may have soothed her, but she was too caught up in the churning memories and emotions and self-recriminations. The way she had lost her temper with Kenner was too reminiscent of scenes from Scott County-fights with the sheriff, tirades unleashed on her assistants and colleagues.

She gulped a breath and stopped her pacing, bringing up both hands to press them against her temples. As in a dream, she could see herself tearing her office apart, wild, ranting, throwing things, smashing things, screaming until her assistant, Michael Hellerman, had called in Bubba Vandross from security to come and subdue her.

After months of riding that mental edge, she had gone over. She wasn't on the brink now, but she was damn close. The frustration of trying to deal with Kenner pushed a button. She had no control over him, and control was the one thing she had needed most since her father had died.

And then the press. God, would she never escape the loop of recurrences? If she had gone to Bermuda instead of Bayou Breaux, would she now be standing in the magistrate's office, embroiled in some island intrigue?

She let out a shuddering breath and tried to let go some of the tension in her shoulders. She needed to regroup, to think things through. She needed to find Savannah and dispel the dark shadows lurking in the back of her mind.

She ran a hand over the soft leather of her pocketbook, thinking of the odd trinkets she had dropped into it-the earring, the necklace, the matchbook. She had shown none of them to Kenner, knowing he would only have taken them as further proof of her mental instability. They might have come from anywhere. They might all have been Savannah's.

The matchbook lingered in her mind. Jack turning it over with his nimble musician's fingers. His expression going carefully blank at the sight of the name. A leather bar in the Quarter. Secretive, seclusive, exclusive. A place where masks were commonplace and anything might be had for a price or a thrill. He had been there doing research for a book.

He had pinned her arms above her head, held her down as he joined their bodies…

Jimmy Lee Baldwin was into bondage, Savannah said.

Savannah had allowed herself to be tied up…

Nausea swirled around Laurel's stomach, and she leaned against an antique credenza and closed her eyes.

"Would you care for a brandy?"

She jerked her head up as Danjermond closed the door softly behind him.

"For medicinal purposes, of course," he added with a ghost of a smile.

"No," she said, stiffening her knees, squaring her shoulders. "No, thank you."

He slid his hands into the pockets of his trousers and wandered along a wall of leather-bound tomes. "Forgive me for being less than supportive in Kenner's office. I've learned the best way to handle him is not to handle him at all." He shot her a sideways look, taking her measure. "And I admit I wanted to see you in action. You're quite ferocious, Laurel. One would never suspect that looking at you-so delicate, so feminine. I like a paradox. You must have taken many an opponent by surprise."

"I'm good at what I do. If the opposition is taken by surprise by that, then they're simply stupid."

"Yes, but the plain fact is that people draw certain conclusions based on a person's looks and social background. I've been on the receiving end of such impressions myself, being from a prominent family."

Laurel arched a brow. "Are you trying to tell me you may be a son of the Garden District Danjermonds, the shipping Danjermonds, but at heart you're just a good ol' boy? I have a hard time believing that."

"I'm saying one can't judge a book by its cover-pretty or otherwise. One never really knows what might hide behind ugliness or lurk in the heart of beauty."

She thought again of Savannah, her beautiful sister, spinning around Frenchie's with Annie Gerrard in a headlock, smearing excrement on the wall of St. Joseph's Rest Home outside Astor Cooper's window, screaming obscenities in the moonlight. Sighing, she closed her eyes and rubbed at her forehead as if she could scrub her brain clean of doubt.

"I'll do what I can to influence Kenner," Danjermond said softly.

He was behind her now, close enough that she could sense his nearness. He settled his elegant hands on her shoulders and began to rub methodically at the tension. Laurel wanted to bolt, but she held her ground, unsure of whether his gesture was compassion or dominance, unsure of whether her response was courage or acquiescence.

"I can't make any promises, though," he said evenly. "I'm afraid he has a valid point concerning the information on Baldwin. Your sister has something of a credibility problem. Particularly as she's gone missing. You know all about credibility problems, don't you, Laurel?"

She jerked away from his touch and turned to face him, her anger blazing back full force. "I can do without the reminder, thank you, and all the other little snide remarks you so enjoy slipping into our conversations like knives. Just whose side are you on, anyway?"

"Justice takes the side of right. Nature, however, chooses strength," he pointed out. "Right and strength don't always coincide."

He let that cryptic assertion hang in the air as he opened a beautiful cherrywood humidor on his desktop and selected a slim, expensive cigar. "The courtroom more often resembles a jungle than civilization," he said as he went about the ritual of clipping the end of the cigar. "Strength is essential. I need to know how strong you are if we're going to work together."

"We're not," Laurel said flatly, moving toward the door.

He slid into his high-backed chair, rolling his cigar between his fingers. "We'll see."

"I have other things to see to," she snapped, infuriated by his smug confidence that she wouldn't be able to resist the lure of his offer or the lure of him personally. "Finding my sister for one, since the sheriff's department is obviously going to be of little help."

A lighter flared in his hands, and he drew on the cigar, filling the air with a rich aroma. "I wouldn't worry overmuch, Laurel," he said, his handsome head wreathed in fragrant, cherry-tinted smoke. "She may well have gone to N'Awlins, as her lover suggested. Or perhaps she's enjoying the charms of another man. She'll turn up."

But what condition would she be in when she did? The question lodged like a knot in Laurel's chest. If Savannah had gone off some inner precipice, what would be left to find? The possibilities sickened her. One thing was certain-Savannah wouldn't be the sister Laurel had always leaned on. The child within her wept at the thought.

Prejean's Funeral Home was typical in Acadiana. Built in the sixties, it was a low brick building with a profusion of flower beds outside and a strange mix of sterility, tranquillity, and grief within. The floors were carpeted in flat, industrial-grade, dirt brown nylon, made to last and to deaden the sounds of dress shoes pounding across it. The ceilings were low-hung acoustical panels that had absorbed countless cries and murmured condolences.

Prejean's had two parlors for times that were regrettably busy, and a large kitchen that, if people had known how closely it resembled the embalming room, may well have gone unused. But, as with every social situation in South Louisiana, food was served for comfort and for affirmation of life. Women friends of T-Grace's, neighbors, fellow parishioners from Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows Catholic church would be in the kitchen brewing strong coffee and making sandwiches. Laurel knew Mama Pearl had brought a coconut cake.

Those who had come to pay respects to the Delahoussayes gathered in the Serenity room. The casket was positioned at the front of the room beneath a polished oak cross. Closed, the lid was piled high with white mums and gardenias, as if to discourage anyone from trying to lift it. Candles flickered at either end in tall brass candelabras.

People stood in knots of three and four at the back of the room, distancing themselves from death as much as they could while still supporting the family with their presence. Up front, more serious mourners sat in rows of chrome-and-plastic chairs that interlocked like Lego toys. Enola Meyette led the chanting of the rosary, a low murmur of French that underscored whispered conversations and muffled sobs.

T-Grace sat front and center in an ill-fitting black dress, her face swollen, her red hair standing out from her head as if she had been given an electric shock, her eyes huge and bloodshot. She was supported on one side by a burly son. To her right, Ovide sat in a catatonic state, his mouth slack, shoulders drooping beneath the weight of his grief.

Laurel's heart ached for them as she made her way through the throng to pay her respects. She knelt before T-Grace and took hold of a bony hand that had to be at least as cold as that of the daughter lying dead in the casket.

"I'm so sorry, T-Grace, Ovide," she whispered, tears rising automatically. She had been schooled from childhood to keep her emotions politely concealed. Even at her father's funeral, Vivian had admonished her and Savannah to cry softly into their handkerchiefs so as not to make spectacles of themselves. But the day had been too long, and she was too tired and keyed-up for anything but a modicum of restraint.

T-Grace looked down on her, valiantly trying to smile, her thin mouth twisting and trembling with the effort. "Merci, Laurel. You're all the time so good to us."

Laurel squeezed the hand in hers and pressed back the emotions crowding her throat. "I wish I could do more," she whispered, feeling impotent.

She turned to Ovide, trying to think of something to say to him, but his eyes were on his daughter's casket, glazed with a kind of numb shock, as if he had only just realized how permanent Annie's absence would be.

As Mrs. Meyette began another decade of the rosary, Laurel rose and moved off toward the back of the room, restless and uncomfortable as she always had been with the rituals of death. She scanned the crowd, looking for Jack, but not finding him. She didn't know if she was more disappointed for T-Grace and Ovide or for herself. Stupid. How many times had he told her she couldn't count on him?

How many times had he made a lie of his own words?

He was a con man in his own right, playing a shell game with his personality. Distract the mark with the appearance of a rogue, while under one shell hid a heart filled with compassion and under another one compressed with grief and guilt. The shells swept and danced beneath his clever hands. Now you see it, now you don't. Which one held the real Jack? Would he ever let her close enough to find out?

She felt a little guilty, thinking about him during a wake, but in that moment she would have given just about anything to feel his arms slip around her, to hear his smoky voice murmur something irreverent in her ear. She was tired and worried, and she wanted very badly to share those fears with someone.

A call to Maison de Ville in New Orleans had assured her Savannah wasn't staying there. A call to Le Mascarade had gotten her nothing but a derisive laugh. Patrons names were confidential. She had tracked down Ronnie Peltier, who was hefting sacks at Collins Feed and Seed. He hadn't seen Savannah since Tuesday night. She had come to his trailer in a temper and left an hour or two later. He claimed he hadn't seen her since.

Laurel spotted him standing with a group of cronies across the room-Taureau Hebert and several other regulars from the bar. They looked young and uncomfortable in neckties. Their eyes avoided the casket at the front of the room.

"It's fascinating, isn't it?"

She jumped as Danjermond's voice sounded low and soft in her ear. He stood beside her, looking as perfectly pressed as he had that morning, his suit immaculate, tie neat. Laurel felt wilted and rumpled beside him even though she had showered and changed into a skirt and fresh blouse before coming. That effect alone was enough reason to avoid him, as far as she was concerned.

"All the different defense mechanisms people develop to deal with death," he said, frowning slightly as his gaze moved over the gathering of the faithful and the bereaved. "A dose of religion, gossip, and jokes served up with coffee and a slice of pie afterward."

"People take comfort in ritual," Laurel said, trying to sidle away from him, but he had her neatly trapped between himself and a potted palm.

"Yes, that's true," he murmured, his sharp green gaze taking in the tableau of grief at the front of the room. T-Grace had begun to sob again, and her children gathered around her. Mrs. Meyette raised her voice, but never broke cadence in the recitation of the Hail Marys.

"Are you here in an official capacity or just out of morbid curiosity?"

He arched a brow at her sarcasm. "Would you rather Kenner had come to represent Partout Parish?"

"Not even he would be that callous."

T-Grace let out a series of soul-raking, ear-piercing wails, and one of her sons and Leonce Comeau half dragged her from the room. They were followed by old Doc Broussard, toting his black bag, and Father Antaya, each of them ready to dispense his own brand of medicine.

"Any sign of your sister, yet?" Danjermond asked.

"No, but if you'll excuse me, I see someone who may be able to help me."

Calling on skills honed at countless cocktail parties, Laurel slipped away from him before he could voice a protest and worked her way through the crowd to the front of the room. The final amen was uttered, and those who had been praying rose stiffly, beads clacking as they stored their rosaries in purses, pouches, pockets.

Leonce came back into the room, his marred face grim, his bald spot shining with sweat. He pulled a red handkerchief out of his hip pocket and dabbed at the moisture. He had thrown a black jacket on over his black T-shirt and jeans, and shoved the sleeves to his elbows, making him look more like an artist or a rock star than a mourner.

"Hey, chère, where y'at?" he said, managing a weary smile as he settled a hand on Laurel's arm. "Jack here?"

"No."

His gaze cut away so she couldn't see the hope that sparked in his eyes. He looked to the coffin, gleaming polished oak beneath its drape of waxy gardenias and frayed mums. "I shoulda guessed not. Jack, he don' do funerals. Been to one too many, I guess."

Laurel made a noncommittal sound. "How's T-Grace?"

"She's laying down in old man Prejean's office." He shook his head, still amazed. "Dat's some kinda scream she got, no?"

"I imagine losing a child tears loose a lot of things inside."

"Yeah, I guess." His dark gaze settled on the casket again because he was a little superstitious about turning his back on it. "Poor Annie," he murmured. "Teased one dick too many. All she wanted was to pass a good time. Look what it got her."

The implication made Laurel frown. No one asked to be tortured and killed. No woman deserved the kind of end Annie had met, regardless of what kind of life she had led. That thought bled into thoughts of Savannah, and Laurel's heart thumped at the base of her throat.

"Leonce, have you seen Savannah lately?"

He jerked around toward her, his brows slashing down over his eyes in a way that made his scar seem longer and more prominent. "Hey, yeah, I gotta talk to you 'bout dat one," he said ominously.

Taking her by the arm again, he led her out the door and into the shadows of the hall that led to the room where Prejean practiced his craft of readying people for the great beyond. The skin prickled at the base of Laurel's neck, and she cast a nervous glance back toward the Serenity room.

Leonce let go of her and stepped back, one hand propped at his waist, the other unconsciously touching his cheek, fingertips rubbing at the scar as if it might be erased. "Tuesday night I'm comin' back from Loreauville-me, I sing with a band down there sometimes, you know?-and I'm drivin' down Tchoupitoulas 'bout a block from St. Joe's home. Here comes Savannah runnin' 'cross the grass, 'cross the street right in front of me. I damn near hit her. I lean out the window and I yell, 'Hey, what's a matter wit' you, chère? You gone crazy or somethin'?' "

Laurel felt as if an anvil had dropped on her from a great height. This wasn't the story she had wanted to hear. She wanted him to tell her he'd seen her sister driving off to Lafayette to visit friends or leaving with a lover for a tryst in New Orleans. She didn't want confirmation of a suspicion that made her weak with dread.

Leonce was watching her, waiting for some kind of response. She somehow managed to open her mouth and make words come out. "Did she answer you?"

"Oh, yeah," he snorted. "She comes around the side window and tells me why don't I go fuck myself. How you like dat?"

"I don't," Laurel murmured. She blew out a breath and combed her fingers back through her hair, walking in a slow circle around Leonce, her mind working automatically to assimilate the story into the other facts and pieces she'd stored away. Tears rose in her eyes as the nerves in her stomach twisted tight around a hot lump of fear.

"Hey," Leonce drawled, spreading his hands wide. "I didn' mean to upset you, chère. I just thought you oughta know." He reached out to her, offering comfort and concern. Curling his fingers over her shoulder, he let his thumb brush against the pulse point in her throat. "You wanna go get a drink or somethin' and talk about it? Me, I'm a pretty good listener."

While the idea of escape appealed to her enormously, the idea of escaping with Leonce did not. There was just enough male interest in his big dark eyes to override the sympathy he was offering. And truth to tell, as ashamed as it made her feel, she didn't like looking at him. The scar continually drew her eye-the smooth, shiny quality of it, the grotesque burls of scar tissue that left brow and nose and lip slightly misshapen.

"We can go someplace dark," he said, the musical quality of his voice flattened and hard. His fingers tightened briefly on her shoulder, then he jerked them away.

Laurel felt an immediate kick of guilt. "No, Leonce, I didn't mean-"

"Is everything all right, Laurel?"

Danjermond stood at the end of the hall, half in light, half in shadow, his steady gaze shifting slowly from her to Leonce and back. Leonce swore under his breath in French and pushed past her, heading for a side exit.

Laurel heaved a sigh and pushed her glasses up on her nose. "Yes, everything is just peachy."

"I was just leaving," he said, producing the keys to his Jag and dangling them from his hand. "Would you care to join me for a nightcap or a cup of coffee?"

She shook her head, amazed at his inability to grasp the concept of the word "no." "Your persistence is astounding, Mr. Danjermond."

He smiled that feline smile. She could almost imagine him purring low in his throat. "As I've said, nature rewards strength and tenacity."

"Not tonight she doesn't." Laurel slipped her hand into her pocketbook and brushed the chain of the butterfly necklace away from her tangle of keys. "I'm going home."

Danjermond inclined his handsome head, conceding. "Some other time."

When hell freezes over, Laurel thought as she walked out. The sky was purple and orange in the west. The light above the parking lot was winking on with a series of clicks and buzzes. She unlocked the door of the Acura and slid behind the wheel, thinking she would rather have gum surgery than go out with Stephen Danjermond. A date with him would have to be like consenting to have her brain poked with needles. She wondered if he had ever had a conversation that didn't run on three levels simultaneously. Perhaps as a child-if he had ever been a child. The Garden District Danjermonds probably frowned on childhood the same way her own mother had.

Odd, she thought, that they would have that in common and turn out so very different from one another. But then she'd already seen firsthand that shared experiences didn't guarantee shared responses. She and Savannah could scarcely have been less alike. Thousands of teenage girls were molested by stepfathers or other men in their lives; not all of them responded the way Savannah had. Statistics showed that abused boys grew into abusive men, but she couldn't picture Jack beating a child-he had wept over the one he had lost without knowing.

Jack. She wondered where he was, if he was privately mourning the loss of a friend or if he was tipping back a bottle of Wild Turkey and telling himself he didn't have any friends. He drank too much. She cared too much. She had read once somewhere that love wasn't always convenient, but she had never wanted to believe it could be hopeless. Jack swore he didn't want emotional entanglements. With tensions pulling her in all directions, she didn't feel strong enough to convince him otherwise.

She didn't feel strong enough to face Aunt Caroline tonight, either, but circumstances weren't offering any options. She had put it off as long as she could. Now she was going to have to sit down with her aunt and give voice to all the facts and fears about her sister.

Dread lying like a lead weight in her stomach, she put the car in gear and headed toward Belle Rivière, never aware of the eyes that watched her with vicious intent from cover of darkness.

The house was dark. Laurel let herself in the front door, feeling a guilty sense of relief. As necessary as it was to talk to Caroline about Savannah, she couldn't help being glad for a reprieve. The day had been long enough, trying enough.

The note on the hall table said Caroline had gone to New Iberia to spend the evening with friends. Mama Pearl would still be down at Prejean's, on kitchen duty until the last of the wake crowd had drunk the last of the coffee.

Laurel leaned against the hall table for a moment, trying to absorb the quiet. The old house stood around her, solid, substantial, safe, giving the odd creak and groan, sounds that were familiar and usually comforting. But tonight they only magnified the hollow feeling of loneliness that yawned inside her.

She felt alone. Abandoned. Guilty for having let her sister slip away toward madness.

Struggling with the feelings, she let herself out the hall door and went into the courtyard. Restlessly she walked the brick paths, staying near the gallery. After a few moments she settled on a bench and curled herself into the corner, tossing her purse onto the seat beside her.

The garden was mysterious by moonlight. Dark shapes that crouched and huddled, long shadows and hushed rustlings. By day it was growing lush and beautiful and in need of a weeding. That was what she had come to Belle Rivière for-quiet days of gardening, Mama Pearl's gruff fussing and fattening meals, Aunt Caroline's unflagging strength and pragmatism, Savannah's support.

"Don't cry, Baby. Daddy's gone, but we'll always have each other."

How selfish she had been. Always taking Savannah's comfort, Savannah's protection. Too afraid of losing her mother's love to fight on Savannah's behalf. Burying herself in school, college, law school, work, while Savannah was left with bitter memories and her self-esteem in tatters.

Rise above your past. Put it behind you. Forget. She claimed she had, and it had always angered her that Savannah couldn't, wouldn't. Maybe all her sister had needed was someone to lean on, to help her, to support instead of ridicule, but Laurel had been off fighting other people's battles.

"I'm sorry, Sister," she whispered, tears slipping down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry. Please come home so I can tell you that in person."

Her only answer was the call of a barred owl from the woods beyond L'Amour. Then stillness. Absolute stillness. The back of her neck tingled, and she sat up straighter, straining her eyes to see into the night, holding her breath and trying to hear beyond the rushing of her pulse in her ears. She imagined she could feel eyes on her, staring in through the back gate, but she could see nothing beyond the iron bars. She thought of her sister running through the night, wild with anger, full of pain.

"Savannah?"

Crickets sang, frogs answered back from the bayou, where a heavy mist crept over the bank.

Malevolence crawled over her skin like worms.

Eyes on the gate, she bent over her purse and fumbled for her gun.

"If you wanna shoot me, you're gonna have to turn around, 'tite chatte."

Laurel shrieked and whirled around to find Jack standing not three feet from her. Her heart went into warp drive. "How the hell did you get in here?"

"The front door was open," he said with a shrug. "You really oughta be more careful, sugar. There's all kinds of lunatics running around these days."

"Yes," Laurel said, ignoring his wry tone. She was too damned spooked for banter. "I thought I heard one on the other side of the gate."

Frowning, Jack stepped past her and went to look. He came back, shaking his head. "Nothing. What did you think it was? Someone in the bushes?"

Savannah, she thought, sick that it might have been, relieved that it hadn't been. "What are you doing here?"

Good question. Jack stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and wandered along the edge of the gallery and back. He had spent the evening walking along the bayou, trying to put as much distance as he could between himself and Prejean's Funeral Home. He couldn't bear the thought of a wake, and yet his thoughts had been filled with all of it-the coffin, the choking perfume of flowers, the intoning of the rosary. He could as well have been there for as raw as he felt now.

"I don' know," he whispered, turning back toward Laurel. Lie. He knew too well. He needed her, wanted the feel of her in his arms because she was real and alive and he loved her. Dieu, how stupid, how cruel that he should fall in love with someone so good. He couldn't even tell her, because he knew it couldn't last. Nothing good ever did once he touched it.

"I saw your car," he said, his voice strained and hoarse. "Saw the light…"

His broad shoulders rose and fell. He turned to pace, but her small hand settled on his arm, holding him in place as effectively as an anchor. He looked down into her angel's face, and the air fisted in his lungs. She had left her glasses on the hall table, and she looked up at him with night blue eyes that mirrored the need that ached in his soul.

"I don't really care," she said softly.

It didn't matter they had fought or that she had no hope for their future. This was just one night, and she felt so alone and so afraid. She looked up into his shadowed face, taking in the hard angles, the scarred chin, the eyes that had seen too much pain. It wasn't the face of the kind, safe lover she always envisioned for herself, but love him she did, and as they both stood there hurting, she needed him so badly, she thought she might die of it.

"Just tell me you'll stay," she whispered. "Just tonight."

He should have said no. He should have walked away. He should never have come to her in the first place, but then he'd never been very good at doing what was right. And he couldn't look into her eyes and say no.

"You shouldn't want me," he murmured, amazed that she did.

Laurel raised a hand and pressed her fingers to his lips. "Don't tell me how bad you are, Jack. Show me how good you can be."

He closed his eyes against a wave of pain, leaned down and brushed his lips against her cheek. It was as much of an answer as Laurel needed. Taking him by the hand, she led him up the back stairs and into her moonlit room.

They undressed each other quietly, patiently. They made love the same way, immersing themselves in the desire, steeping themselves in the experience, savoring the tenderness. Gentle touches. Soft, deep kisses. Caresses as sensuous as silk. A joining of bodies and two scarred souls. Straining to reach together for a kind of ecstasy that would banish shadows. A brilliant golden burst of pleasure. Trying desperately to hold on as it slipped away like stardust through their fingers.

And when it was over and Laurel lay asleep in his arms, Jack stared into the dark and wished with all that was left of his heart that he wouldn't have to let her go.