Cry Wolf

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Laurel woke with a start and headache. Her breath came in pants as the residual uneasiness of a dream hung around her. Eyes. She'd felt eyes on her, staring from the dark. But she hadn't been able to see the face, had only known somehow that it was familiar.

It was only a dream, but the uneasiness lingered as she sat up slowly and took stock of herself and the room around her. It had rained. The glass of the French doors was spattered with windblown droplets. The weather system had moved on, but gray still clung to the sky where dawn should have been.

She rubbed a hand over her face, groaning a bit as the headache kicked the backs of her eyeballs. She didn't know how long she had slept. An hour, maybe two. The state of the bedclothes was a testimony to how badly she had slept. The sheets were torn loose from the foot of the bed, the spread was rumpled. The notes she had made were scattered.

Grimacing at the taste of bitter dreams in her mouth, she forced herself to get up and gather the papers and the pen. She snatched them up, one by one, following a trail of them across the floor. She dug her glasses out of the folds of the bedspread, slipped them on, and combed her bangs back with her fingers. The gears of her brain strained into motion with much creaking and grinding, slipping and catching.

Baldwin, Cooper, Leonce, Ross. Names and question marks filled the pages. Notes, hunches, feelings. Hunches and feelings weren't admissible in a court of law. She knew that better than most people.

She walked to the French doors, shuffling the pages, brow furrowed as she retraced the ramblings of her mind. Not Jack. The bold declaration caught her eye, and her heart gave a traitorous thump. Bits of evidence tried to surface in her mind-his duality, the way he could seemingly appear and disappear at will, his past, his profession. And she beat every one of them back down.

Through the windowpanes she could see a bit of L'Amour-mysterious, shabby, standing alone on the bank of the bayou-and she let herself wonder for just a second what he was doing, whether he regretted the things he'd said to her, whether he wished as strongly as she did for the feel of familiar arms around him.

"You've known him how long? A week?"

God, was it only that? It seemed so much longer. The minutes and hours of the past week had somehow been elongated, magnified, and packed densely with experience and needs and fears. It seemed like forever, and at the same time, it could never be enough.

Not productive thinking. He didn't want her, didn't want any chance at a relationship. He wanted his solitude and his self-inflicted pain. He wanted to play the party animal, then go home to his empty prison. And when she was thinking straight, she knew it was just as well that she leave him to it. She needed time to heal-the old wounds and the new. She needed to get her world back on its axis and find her own place in it. A fresh start was what she needed, not a man with a past haunting him.

Craving a breath of fresh, rain-washed morning air to clear her muzzy head, Laurel set the notes aside on a table, unlocked and swung open the doors, as she had done hundreds of times in her life.

A scream tore from her throat and she shot back across the room before her conscious mind could even register what she had seen. Hand clutched to a heart that was racing out of control, she forced her eyes to focus, forced her brain to accept the information sent to it.

Wound around the outside door handle was the limp, dead body of a cottonmouth snake.

"Goddamn it, I thought you were watching her, Deputy Pruitt!" Kenner bellowed.

The thin, pasty-faced young man stood on the balcony outside Laurel's room looking as if he were contemplating the advantages of jumping off.

"Yessir, I was, sir," he said, trying unsuccessfully to swallow the knot in his throat. His Adam's apple bobbed as his eyes darted to the body of the snake. Christ Almighty, he hated snakes. Everyone knew he hated snakes. Dollars to doughnuts, Kenner would make him unwrap this one from that handle and bag it as evidence. It looked to be a good four feet long. "I came on at four A.M., sir, and I swear I didn't see nothin'. I watched this house like a hawk."

Kenner swaggered to the door, reached down, and flicked a finger under the head of the snake. It flipped up, exposing the patches of cream color on the underside of the throat, and flopped back down, hitting the wood with a dull thud. Deputy Pruitt turned a little grayer. Kenner scowled. Goddamn prissy kid.

"You came on at four. Myers left. How long did the two of you stand around chewing the fat out by the cars?"

Despite his pallor, a hint of red managed to creep into the deputy's cheeks. "Just a while, sir. There wasn't nothin' goin' on. We'da heard."

Snarling, Kenner stepped up to his underling and jabbed the kid's sternum hard with a forefinger. "There sure as hell was somethin' going on, and the hell if you heard it," he growled.

Pruitt clenched his jaw against the need to wince. "Yessir," he mumbled, miserable.

"Bag that snake as evidence, and don't touch one other goddamn thing. If you so much as smudge a fingerprint, I'll cram that cottonmouth down your throat. Do you understand me, Deputy Pruitt?"

"Yessir." Too well. The image had him on the brink of gagging.

Kenner jerked away and turned back toward Laurel.

She sat on the bed in jeans and the T-shirt she had slept in. Caroline stood beside her, wrapped in a white silk robe, her expression the fierce look of a tiger whose cub had been threatened. Mama Pearl, a vision in red chenille, had planted her enormous bulk on a vanity stool that all but disappeared beneath her.

"Y'all didn't hear anything, didn't see anything?" Kenner asked.

Laurel answered, pushing herself to her feet. "For the fourth time, no."

She hadn't seen anything, hadn't heard anything. She had awakened haunted by the feeling of eyes on her. Her skin crawled.

Caroline crossed her arms and started pacing beside the bed, her lips pressed into a thin line of disapproval. She cut a dark, sharp look at Kenner. "This is intolerable, Sheriff. My niece is being tormented by a psychopath, and your office can't manage to do so much as to keep her safe inside a locked house?"

"The house was under surveillance, Miz Chandler."

"It would seem it was under better surveillance by the killer than by your deputies."

Kenner shot a look at Pruitt, who was damn near green as he fumbled with the long, rubbery body of the dead snake, then his gaze moved beyond. Beyond the balcony, beyond the courtyard, to the house Jack Boudreaux had taken. The house of a dead whore. It would have been a simple matter to watch for the change of shifts, slip into the garden, and climb the stairs. Wrap a dead cottonmouth around the door handle-just as the killer had done in Blood Will Tell.

He'd been scanning the collective works of Jack Boudreaux last night. After seeing the kind of stuff that rotted in the man's imagination, the sheriff had no difficulty picturing him as a killer.

"It won't happen again, ma'am," he growled. He dismissed Caroline and swung around to Deputy Wilson, a kid who had been built for the NFL but not blessed with speed. "Go see if Boudreaux is home. I want to have me a little talk with him downtown."

"Why?"

Laurel's question drew a narrow stare from the sheriff. "Why not?"

Because I know him. Because I've slept with him. The answers weren't going to dissuade Kenner.

He strode from the room with his linebacker at his heels, leaving the unhappy Pruitt to wrestle with the snake and the contents of his own stomach.

Mama Pearl rocked herself up from the little vanity chair and reached out to pat Laurel's arm. "You come on down to my kitchen, chère. I fix you tea and biscuits with honey."

"I'm sorry, Mama Pearl," she said, moving to the wardrobe to hunt for clothes. "I have to get down to the courthouse."

Caroline's brows snapped down over her dark eyes. "Laurel, you can't mean it! You've had no rest and one terrible shock after another! Stay here," she insisted, wrapping an arm around her niece's shoulders, keeping her from reaching for a blouse. She hugged Laurel hard, emotion suddenly clogging her throat. "Stay here with me, sweetheart," she whispered. "Please. I don't want you getting involved in this. I don't want to lose you, too."

Laurel looked from her aunt to the door, where the snake hung in a single loop and Deputy Pruitt leaned over the balcony disgracing himself all over the clematis vine. "I'm already in it, Aunt Caroline," she said softly. "And there's only one way out."

Jack woke with a pounding in his head and pounding on the front door of the house. He wished he could manage to ignore both. The banging in his head was the farewell gong of a substantial amount of Wild Turkey. The banging on the door turned out to be a very large deputy named Wilson, a man without sympathy or humor, who hauled him downtown to "have a little talk" with Sheriff Kenner.

Now he was sitting in a straight chair that had to be an antique from the Inquisition, staring across a scarred table at Kenner's ugly mug.

"Do you want a lawyer?"

"Do I need one?" Jack returned, arching a brow. "Am I being charged with something?"

"No. Should I be charging you?"

Depends, he thought. Heaven knew he was guilty of plenty. He dug a cigarette out of the breast pocket of his chambray shirt and dangled it from his lip. "You catch a lot of idiots with that question?"

"A few."

He struck a match and sucked crud deep into his lungs with the kind of greed known only to an ex-smoker fallen off the wagon.

"What do you call two thousand lawyers at the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain?" He left the appropriate pause for an answer, even though Kenner just sat there glaring at him. Jack flashed him a wry grin and blew twin streams of smoke out his nose. "A good start."

Kenner didn't so much as blink. "Where were you this morning about four o'clock?"

"In my bed, dead sound asleep."

"Interesting choice of words."

Jack shrugged expansively. "C'est vrai. Words are my life."

"Yeah," Kenner sniffed. "I've been reading some of your best-sellers, Jack. Blood Will Tell. Evil Illusions. You've got a sick mind."

"I'm just doing my job," Jack said glibly. He rubbed the ruby stud in his earlobe between thumb and forefinger and gave Kenner a wry look. "You're the one plunked down six bucks for the pleasure of reading it."

"I got them from the library."

"Ouch." He winced. "No royalties from you."

Again Kenner ignored him, sticking to his own agenda. "Pretty reckless of you to steal ideas from your own work."

Dread hit Jack in the belly like a boot. Mon Dieu, not again, not another dead girl. He sat up straighter and abandoned his cigarette in the tin ashtray on the table. "What are you talkin' about?"

Kenner planted his elbows on the table and leaned forward, as well, jaw set, eyes narrowed. "I'm talking about slipping over to Belle Rivière while the deputies were changing shifts and wrapping a dead cottonmouth around the handle to Laurel Chandler's bedroom door."

A potent combination of rage and fear swirled through Jack, and he surged to his feet, sending the chair screeching back on the linoleum. A killer had been playing games with her. Apparently the game was not over. And on the heels of those feelings came the guilt that a truly twisted mind had borrowed from his imagination.

He stalked the cheerless box of the interrogation room with his shoulders braced and his hands jammed at the waist of his jeans, doing his best to fight it all off. What he really needed, he told himself, was to get the hell out of town for a while. Until the killer was behind bars. Until Laurel had packed up and moved on with her life.

He stopped his pacing in front of what had to be a two-way glass and stared hard at the reflection of himself, wondering who might be on the other side.

Kenner watched him with hard, cold eyes, trying to read every nuance of expression and movement. "You didn't happen to have anybody in bed with you can vouch for your whereabouts?"

Jack swung around to face him, brows pulling low over his eyes. "I wouldn't do anything to hurt Laurel."

The word "liar" rang like a gong in his head, but he ignored it. He had pushed her out of his life for her own good, not to hurt her. And damn but he missed her already. The thought of her finding that snake, especially after everything else she had gone through, made him want to go to her to protect her. But he couldn't do that. Wouldn't. He was nobody's white knight.

Something thumped against the door, breaking his train of thought, then came the sound of an argument loud enough to be heard quite clearly.

"I don't give a damn what Sheriff Kenner had to say. Mr. Boudreaux has a right to counsel."

"But, ma'am-"

"Don't you 'But, ma'am' me, Deputy. I know my way around a police station, and I know my way around the law. Now open that door."

The door cracked open, and the massive Wilson stuck his head in, looking browbeaten and sheepish. "Excuse me, Sheriff Kenner?"

Kenner was out of his seat and fuming. He went to the door, grumbling under his breath, and grabbed the knob, just barely resisting the urge to slam it shut on Wilson's head.

"What's the problem here, Deputy?" He ground the whisper between his teeth like dust. "You can't keep one goddamn little slip of a woman out of my hair for five minutes?"

Laurel's voice sliced through the crack in the door like a knife. "Denying people their rights is serious business, Sheriff. I suggest you open that door at the risk of having me really tear through your hair-what's left of it."

Jack rubbed a hand across his mouth to hide his smile. She was a spitfire-no two ways about it. Most women in her situation would have been home, hiding. They certainly wouldn't have come to his rescue after the things he'd said and the way he'd behaved, he thought, the smile dying abruptly.

"I don't need a lawyer, angel," he said as Kenner stepped back and let her into the room.

She shot him a look that had turned better men to ashes. "A man who represents himself has a fool for a client."

"Miz Chandler," Kenner began on a long, bone-weary sigh, "I'm speaking with Mr. Boudreaux about the case you're involved in. This is a conflict of interest."

"Not if I don't believe he did it," Laurel said. "Besides, this is a noncustodial interview, is it not?" She arched a brow above the rim of her oversize glasses, waiting for Kenner to refute the statement. "No charges are being filed. In the event it becomes a conflict of interest, I will recommend Mr. Boudreaux seek other representation."

Not giving a damn if either man wanted her there, Laurel marched across the room to the table and took the only seat that looked remotely comfortable-Kenner's. In her heart, she knew she wanted to be here for Jack, but she told herself she was really doing it for Savannah. The more she could find out about what was going on, the better her chance of helping crack the case, and the sooner it could all be laid to rest inside her.

Kenner scowled at her, then at Boudreaux, wishing fleetingly that he had listened to his old man way back when and gone into insurance. He pulled another straight chair out from the wall, set it at the end of the table, and planted one booted foot on the seat.

Jack slid lazily back down on the chair he had vacated and took up the smoldering butt of his cigarette between thumb and forefinger. He met Laurel's gaze for an instant and tried to read what she was thinking. She didn't flinch, didn't blink, didn't smile. There were delicate purple shadows beneath her eyes and a vulnerability around her mouth he was certain she didn't realize was there, but she didn't give him anything-except the impression that he'd hurt her badly and she was too damn proud to bend beneath the weight of it.

Kenner sniffed and cleared his throat rudely, digging a finger into the breast pocket of his uniform to pull a cigarette out from behind his badge. "So, you don't have an alibi for this morning."

Crushing out the stub of his smoke, Jack shot the sheriff a look. "Innocent people don't need alibis."

"You got an alibi for Wednesday night, ten 'til two A.M.?"

The question struck Laurel harder than it did Jack. Wednesday night. That had to be Savannah's time of death. Sometime between the hours of ten and two. Midnight. The dead of night. She felt chilled.

Wednesday night between ten and two. She had come home from dinner with Vivian around nine and gone to bed early because Aunt Caroline had been out with friends and Mama Pearl had been engrossed in a television movie. And something had jerked her from sleep in the middle of the night.

Oh, God, had she somehow known? Had she somehow sensed the moment her sister had passed from this world?

The thought left her feeling dizzy and weak.

Kenner deliberately ignored the sudden pallor of Laurel Chandler's skin. If she couldn't stand heat, she shouldn't have come into the kitchen. He kept his eyes on Jack and repeated the question.

Howling at the moon, Jack thought. Wandering the banks of the bayou, as he had done most of the day yesterday. Thinking, remembering, punishing himself. Alone.

"Where were you?" Kenner asked again.

"He was with me," Laurel said softly, her heart pounding in her breast. She'd seen the light come on in his window. It had to have been two or after, but he wasn't answering, and she wasn't going to let Kenner pin Savannah's murder on him. Jack couldn't have killed Savannah. He couldn't have brutally murdered a woman and then been moved to tears at the thought of the wife and child he had lost. He couldn't have killed Savannah and then come home and made love with her sister until dawn.

She glanced up at him. His face was a blank, unreadable mask, the scar on his chin looking almost silver under the harsh fluorescent light. "He was with me. We were together. All night."

Swell. Kenner ground his teeth as he ground out his cigarette. The lady lawyer was the alibi. Wasn't that neat? He regarded her for long, silent moments, trying to read a lie in the delicate pink tint of her cheeks. She had loved her sister. He couldn't imagine her lying to cover the murderer's ass. He turned back to Boudreaux. "Is that a fact?"

"Ah, me," Jack drawled, forcing the corners of his mouth up into a smug, cat-in-the-cream smile as he splayed his hands across his chest. "I'm not the kind of man to kiss and tell."

"You're a smart-ass, that's what you are," Kenner barked, his temper snapping. He leaned down in Boudreaux's face, his forefinger pointed like a pistol. "There's nothing I hate like a smart-ass. Poor little Cajun kid got himself a scholarship and went off to college. You think that makes you a big shot now? You think 'cause some bunch of New York dickheads pay you money to write trash, that makes you better than ever'body? I say you're still a smart-ass little swamp rat."

Laurel watched Jack's jaw tighten at the insult and knew Kenner had managed to strike a nerve more sensitive than most. "Does this character assassination have anything to do with the case, Sheriff?" she asked sharply. "Or are you just getting your jollies for the day?"

Kenner didn't take his eyes off Jack. "I'll tell you what it has to do with the case. I've got me a dead woman found with a page from one of ol' Jack's books in her stiff little hand. I've got a dead snake wrapped around a door handle-just like in one of Jack's books. What does that add up to, counselor?"

"It adds up to shit," Laurel declared. "He'd be a fool to implicate himself that way."

"Or a genius. What do you say, Jack? You think you're a genius?"

Jack lit another Marlboro and rolled his eyes, slouching back in his chair. "Jesus, Kenner, you've been watching too many Clint Eastwood movies."

"You ever tie a woman up to have sex with her?"

He held his gaze on Kenner's, avoiding even a glance at Laurel. "I don't have to force women to go to bed with me."

"No, but maybe you like it that way. Some men do."

"Speak for yourself," Jack said, tapping the ashtray. "You're the one wearing handcuffs on your belt. I'm only into violence on paper. Ask anyone who knows me."

Kenner's eyes glittered. "I'd ask your wife, but it so happens she's dead too."

"You son of a bitch."

In one move, Jack came up out of the chair and flung his cigarette down on the floor to singe a hole in the linoleum. Fury built and burned inside him like steam, searing his skin from the inside out. He would have given anything for the chance to tear Kenner's head off without running the risk of prosecution. His hands balled into tight, white-knuckled fists at his sides.

Kenner smiled coldly, careful to move back a step or two, just in case. "That's a nasty temper you have there, Jack," he drawled.

Jack's mouth twisted into a sneer. "Fuck you, Kenner. I'm outta here." Without a backward glance, he stormed from the interrogation room.

"You have a real way with people, Sheriff," Laurel said, brushing past Kenner on her way to the door.

"So does the killer," he growled as she walked out.

Laurel followed Jack through a side door that got them out of the building without being seen by any of the reporters hanging around inside the courthouse. She caught up with him on the sidewalk that cut through the park north of the courthouse, where the moss-draped canopy of live oak offered token protection from the choking heat. The sun had finally emerged to boil the humidity left over from the rain. As a result, the park was empty, air-conditioning being favored way above perspiration. As she hurried down the sidewalk, sweat pearled between her breasts and shoulder blades.

Jack stopped and wheeled on her suddenly, and she brought herself up short, eyes wide at the fierce expression on his face.

"What the hell did you do that for?" he demanded.

Laurel brought her chin up defiantly. "I knew Kenner was questioning you. I couldn't envision you calling an attorney for anything other than to ask him if he had Prince Albert in a can," she said sarcastically.

"That's not what I'm talkin' about, sugar," he said, wagging a finger under her nose. "But while we're on the subject, I can damn well take care of myself."

"Yeah, that's what I like," Laurel drawled, rolling her eyes. "A show of gratitude."

"I'd be grateful if you'd keep that pretty little nose out of my business."

"Oh, never mind that you follow me all over creation, butting in whenever you damn well feel like it! Besides, this is my business, too, Jack," she said, jabbing her chest with a forefinger. "It's my sister who's dead. Her killer is going to pay if I have to catch him with my own two hands!"

"And what if I killed her? You just gave me an alibi!"

"You didn't," she declared stubbornly, blinking back the tears of frustration and fury that swam in her eyes.

"How do you know that?" Jack demanded. "You don' know shit about where I was that night!"

"I know where I was half that night, and I wasn't with a killer!"

"Because we had sex-"

She hauled back a fist and slugged him on the arm as hard as she could. "We made love, and don't you dare call it anything else. We made love, and you know it."

He did know it. She had given herself to him without reserve, and he had taken and cherished every minute of it. He had known that night she was everything he'd ever wanted, and the knowledge scared him bone-deep.

"Why'd you lie to Kenner?" he demanded.

"Because you weren't giving an answer-"

"Why?"

"-and Kenner and Danjermond are more than willing to pin this whole Strangler case on you if they can-"

"Why'd you lie, Laurel?" he taunted, driven by a need that terrified him, knowing damn well he shouldn't want to hear the answer. "Miss Law and Order," he sneered. "Miss Justice For All. Why'd you lie?"

"Because I love you!" she shouted, toe to toe with him.

"Oh, shit!" He jammed his hands on his waist, then planted them on top of his head and turned around in a circle. Panic snapped inside. Love. Dieu, the one thing he secretly always wanted, never deserved. The thing that held the most potential for pain. And Laurel was offering it to him-No. She was throwing it in his face, like a challenge, daring him to take it.

"Yeah, well I'm real happy about it, too, Jack," Laurel shot back, his reaction stinging like a slap in the face. She sniffed and wiped a hand under her nose. "I really need to fall in love right now. I really need to be in love with a man who's dedicated his life to self-torment."

"Then just drop it," Jack said cruelly. "I never meant to give you more than a good time."

"Oh, yeah, it's been a riot," Laurel sneered, fighting the tears so hard, her head was pounding like a trip-hammer. "It's been a regular Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde laugh a minute!"

"Fair exchange for a little research," he said, driving the knife a little deeper and hating himself for it.

"I don't believe you," Laurel declared, grabbing onto that disbelief and clinging to it desperately, swinging it at him like a club. "I don't believe that's the only reason you've been with me."

"You can't dismiss evidence just because it doesn't suit you, counselor," he said coldly.

"Tell me there's a book," she demanded, glaring at him through her tears. She grabbed his arm and tried in vain to turn him toward her. "You look me in the eye, Jack Boudreaux, and tell me there's a book with me in it. You couldn't be that cruel and be so tender with me at the same time."

Jack had thought once that she would be a lousy poker player because he could see everything she felt in her eyes, but she was calling his bluff now with more guts than any man he'd ever faced across a table. And damned if he could do it. He couldn't look down into that earnest, beautiful face and tell her he'd never done anything but use her.

"I don't need this," he grumbled, waving her off.

"No, you don't, do you, Jack?" Laurel said, advancing as he backed away across the thin grass. "You'll be happy to sit in that dump of a house, beating on yourself for the next fifty years or until your liver gives out, whichever comes first. That's a helluva lot easier than taking a chance on finding something better."

"I don't deserve anything better."

"And what do I deserve?" she demanded. "You called me arrogant. How dare you presume to know what's best for me? And what a fool you are to take the blame for someone else's weakness. Evie needed help. She could have gotten it for herself. Other people could have tried to help her. It wasn't all on your shoulders, Jack. You're not the keeper of the world."

"Oh, Christ, that's rich! The pot calls the kettle black! You take everything on as if God Himself appointed you! You take the responsibility, you take the blame. Well, I've got news for you, sugar: I don' wanna be one of your great causes. Butt outta my life!"

Laurel stood there and watched him stalk away, so filled with pain and impotent fury that she couldn't seem to do anything but clench her muscles until she was trembling with it. "Damn," she muttered as a pair of tears slipped over her lashes and rolled down her cheeks. The wall of restraint cracked a little, and another drop of anger leaked out.

"Damn, damn, damn you, Jack Boudreaux!" she snarled under her breath.

Without a thought to the consequences, she turned and slammed her fist against the rough bark of a persimmon tree, scraping the thin skin on her knuckles and sending pain singing up her arm. Good. It was at least a better kind of pain than the one burning in her chest.

She loved him.

"Damn you, Jack," she whispered.

Blinking against the tears, she lifted her hand and sucked on her knuckles, trying to think of what to do next. She had more important things to think of than her broken heart. She would go home and regroup. Spend some time with Aunt Caroline while her brain turned over clues and theories, trying to come up with a picture of a killer. Not because she didn't believe anyone else could do it, but because she was bound by duty and love for a sister who had sheltered and cared for her.

Danjermond was waiting for her beside Caroline's BMW. His coffee brown jacket hung open, the sides pushed back. His hands were in his trouser pockets. But if his stance was casual, his mood was not. Laurel sensed a tension about him, humming around him like electricity in the air.

"I'm surprised at you, Laurel," he murmured, his gaze as sharp and steady as the beam of a laser.

The word "surprised" translated to "disappointed," but Laurel wasn't particularly interested in what Stephen Danjermond thought of her, one way or the other. He was Vivian's choice for her, not her own, and she was through trying to please her mother. Without a word of comment, she dug a hand into her bag to fish out the keys.

"You lied," he said flatly.

She didn't bother asking him how he knew any of what had happened in the interrogation room; she had been a prosecutor, had stood on the other side of two-way mirrors herself. Poker-faced, she looked up at him. "I was with Jack the night Savannah died."

"But not all night," he insisted. "I could hear the hesitation in your voice. Slight, but there. And Boudreaux's reaction-good, but guarded. He was surprised you would lie for him. So am I. I thought you were a purist. Justice by the book."

"Jack didn't kill Savannah," she said, sorting out the proper key and resisting the urge to back away from him.

"How do you know?" he queried softly. "Instinct? Would you know the killer if you looked him in the eye, Laurel?"

She stared up at him, remembering the feel of a gaze in her dreams. Eyes without a face. Memory stirred uneasily. "Perhaps."

"The way you knew the defendants in Scott County were guilty? Instinct, but no evidence. You need evidence, Laurel," he persisted. "No one will believe you without evidence."

"The charges are being dismissed, Ms. Chandler… lack of sufficient evidence… You didn't do your job, Ms. Chandler… You blew it…" The voices echoed in her head, bringing with them shadows of the stress, the desperation. The combination threatened to shake her, but she held firm against them.

"You're the one who'll try this case if Kenner can make an arrest, Mr. Danjermond," she said evenly. "Maybe you should be more concerned about finding some evidence yourself instead of worrying about what I'm doing or not doing."

He said nothing while she unlocked the door to the BMW and pulled it open. She stepped around it on the pretense of tossing her handbag on the seat, but was just as glad to put the distance and the steel between them.

"Isn't that right?" she said, turning toward him once again.

He smiled slightly, a smile that for its strange perfection made the nerves tingle along the back of her neck.

"Oh, I am working on it, Laurel," he said softly, his green eyes shining as if he had sole possession of a wonderful secret. "Rest assured, I will have enough evidence to get a conviction. More than enough."

He let that promise ring in the air for a moment, then changed directions so smoothly and quickly, Laurel thought it was a wonder she didn't lose her balance. "Are you coming to the dinner tonight?"

"No," she said, appalled that he might think she would even consider it. "After all that's happened recently, I'm sure you understand that I'm not feeling up to it."

"Of course," he murmured, reaching into an inside jacket pocket to extract a long, slim cigar. He trimmed the end with a pocket-size device, snipping it cleanly and efficiently. "I understand completely. You've lost your sister. The best suspect we have is your lover-"

"What about Baldwin?" Laurel snapped, an odd, niggling feeling of panic fluttering in her stomach. "What about-"

"He isn't intelligent enough," Danjermond said sharply, cutting her off with his look as much as his words. His eyes were as bright and fervid as gemstones beneath the dark slash of his brows. "He's a petty con man with delusions of grandeur. Do you really believe he could have committed crime after crime without implicating himself?"

"I think there's enough evidence to suspect him-"

"Then you haven't been paying attention, Laurel." He shook his head almost imperceptibly, his eyes never letting go of hers. "You disappoint me," he whispered.

Slowly, almost sensuously, he slipped the tip of the cigar between his lips. Laurel watched, feeling oddly mesmerized, vaguely nervous. He dipped a hand into his pants pocket and came out not with the wafer-thin gold lighter, but with a book of matches.

A bloodred book of matches.

Laurel caught only glimpses of black lacework script beneath his meticulously manicured fingers as he went about the ritual of lighting the cigar, but somehow, she didn't really need to see the name of the bar. Her heart pounded in her throat, in her head. Nausea swirled through her, and she curled her fingers tighter over the edge of the car door.

"This killer is brilliant, Laurel," he said softly, smoothly. "Brilliant, careful, strong. Strength is essential for success in his avocation. Strength of mind, strength of will."

Laurel said nothing. Her eyes were glued to the matchbook. Already her brain had hit the denial stage. It couldn't be. There was an explanation. He'd taken it from the purse Kenner had confiscated.

Or he was a killer and he wanted her to know it.

Danjermond puffed absently on his cigar, turning the folder of matches over in his fingers like a magician warming up for a sleight of hand routine.

"Le Mascarade," he murmured. "Where no one is quite what they seem. We all wear masks, don't we, Laurel?" he asked, lifting a brow. "The trick is finding out what lies behind them."

He slipped the matchbook back into his pocket and strolled away, cherry-scented smoke curling in his wake like mystical ribbons.