Lucky’s Lady

CHAPTER 16

«TELEPHONE CALL, MIZ 'RENA,» ODILLE ANNOUNCED as she stepped into the dining room.

Shelby's head snapped up from a brooding contemplation of her crawfish bisque. «Honestly, Odille, you know better than to interrupt dinner-«

«It's all right,» Serena said, pushing her chair back from the table with unseemly haste. «I was finished anyway.»

She dropped her napkin over the plate she'd barely touched and turned to the housekeeper, who was giving Shelby a smug glare. «I'll take it in the hall, Odille. Thank you.»

Walking out of the dining room and into the hall, Serena felt as if she'd just left a pressurized chamber. She'd never been so glad to escape a meal in her life. The day had been an especially trying one. She'd spent hours with the insurance investigator and the state fire marshal going over the particulars of the fire, walking through what was left of the machine shed. She'd Spent another few hours on the telephone in Gifford s office soliciting aid in the form of equipment from neighboring planters. Then there had been the trip to the bank to really brighten the day. In addition to these pleasant chores she'd had to contend with Shelby's fire and ice moods and Mason's diplomatic lobbying for her to change her mind about selling the land.

Dinner had been the crowning glory. How anyone in that dining room had managed to choke down a single bite of food was beyond her. Serena was more than happy to have an excuse to get away. She could have kissed Odille's feet for interrupting.

She stopped at the hall table and picked up the receiver, expecting to hear the voice of one of the planters she had spoken with that day.

«This is Serena Sheridan. How may I help you?»

«You got it backward,» the man said in a hushed voice. «I want to help you.»

A chill ran down Serena's spine. Her hand tightened on the receiver. «Who is this?»

«A friend.»

The voice was dark and rough, not the voice of a friend, but the voice of a stranger. Serena steeled herself against the tingles of fear running through her and spoke in the most businesslike tone she could manage. «Look, either you give me your name or I'm hanging up.»

«You're not interested in information that could tie Burke to your fire?»

Serena's heart picked up a beat. She swallowed hard. «I'm listening.»

«Meet me at the back edge of that cane field that runs along the bayou in half an hour.»

«Isn't there some other way of doing this?» she asked. The idea of meeting an anonymous caller in the middle of nowhere held no appeal at all. «Can't you tell me what you know now?»

«You can't see evidence over the phone, lady,» he answered impatiently. «Do you want it or not? It's no skin off my nose if the insurance company never pays off.»

In the end Serena agreed to the meeting. She decided she would have James Arnaud follow her at a distance in case there was trouble. She didn't like the idea of meeting the man behind the voice, but she couldn't take the chance of dismissing evidence that would clear the way for the claim to be settled. The future of Chanson du Terre rode on getting that money. The plantation had become Serena's responsibility. She would do whatever she had to do.

She left the house without a word to anyone and walked to Arnaud's house only to be informed by a gum-chewing teenage daughter that the manager had gone to the hospital to visit the two men who had been injured in the explosion. Serena thanked the girl and wandered down the drive, wondering what to do. She could ask one of the other hired men to go with her, but she had no way of knowing which one of them might have been Burke's accomplice. She thought about skipping the meeting, but there was no guarantee her informant would try again.

The claim had to be settled. There was no question of that. Gifford wouldn't be able to cover even a fraction of the cost to replace the machine shed, let alone the machinery that had been burned inside it.

There was no choice for her to make. Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, she set off for the rendezvous spot with determined strides.

No one was waiting for her when she arrived ten minutes later. Serena found herself standing at the end of the canebrake, shifting her weight nervously from one foot to the other. She didn't like being there. Even if it had been the middle of the day, she wouldn't have liked it. This particular field wasn't far from the plantation buildings, but the buildings were out of sight, giving one the impression of total wilderness. The money-green stalks of cane were already tall and grew thickly across the field to the south. To the north, Bayou Noir made a dog-leg cut into Sheridan property, partially isolating this field from the others. The mass willow trees along the bank of the bayou increased the sense of isolation.

Even at high noon this wasn't a place she would have chosen to be. It wasn't noon. The sun had begun its fireball descent. It would be night soon and she stood alone at the end of an equipment lane between a cane field and a black bayou, listening to the melodious call of a red-winged blackbird as the setting sun spilled orange light over everything.

She swung around, her breath catching hard in her throat at a rustling in the tall reeds along the bank. A blue heron rose, eerily silent, it's long, spindly legs stretching out behind it as it sailed away. Serena forced herself to exhale slowly. It wasn't an alligator. It wasn't a snake.

It wasn't her informant.

Serena stroked her fingers along the canister of Mace inside her purse. Her ex-husband had given it to her as a gift when she'd begun her pro bono work at the mental health clinic. Romantic devil. The neighborhood where the clinic was located was a bad one, and she occasionally worked late. Paul had been concerned for her safety and Serena had to admit there had been times when she'd been concerned herself, but she had yet to use his gift. She touched it now only to reassure herself. She didn't really believe she would need protection.

She had already considered the possibility of a trap and dismissed it. Burke wouldn't be foolish enough to try something so close on the heels of the fire. It would point directly to him. Still, it didn't hurt to be prepared.

She heaved a long sigh and scanned the ground around her, looking for snakes. There were long black indigo snakes out here that hunted mice among the cane stalks. They weren't poisonous, but she had no desire to encounter one just the same. There were cottonmouths along the bayou that came out at night and copperheads that commanded the floor of the woods. The idea of them made her skin crawl and fear knot at the back of her throat. They wouldn't come looking for her, Serena reminded herself, doing her best to swallow the impending panic attack.

Where was her damned informant?

The sound of an outboard motor idling down drew her attention to the north. She tried to peer through the tangled ribbons of willow branches to make out the boat and its occupant, but it was impossible to see well. Already the light was fading along the bayou, and all she could make out was bits of color and shape.

She had for some reason assumed the man would be coming the same way she had, by foot down the lane. In the back of her mind she had decided he was an employee of Chanson du Terre. She had imagined he had chosen this spot for the meeting because it was near the plantation buildings and yet secluded enough so they wouldn't be seen. She had given no thought to the bayou or a boat, and she cursed her lack of foresight as a sudden chill swept over her from head to foot.

«Well, lookee here, Pou,» Gene Willis said, a leering smile twisting the hard line of his mouth as he parted the weeds and willow branches and stepped into the clearing. Pou Perret scuttled along at his heels like a pet weasel, his droopy eyes darting furtively all around, his mustache twitching as if he were scenting the air for danger. «If it ain't Lucky Doucet's lady. Fancy meetin' you here, Miz Sheridan.»

Serena eyed the pair warily, her hand closing around the Mace. She recognized them from Mouton's. She doubted she would ever get the scene out of her head: Lucky with a knife in his hand, this big red-haired man lunging for him, the little scruffy one swinging a broken bottle, a wild gleam in his eye. They might have been the kind of men one would hire to start a fire or commit any number of other criminal acts, but they didn't seem like the sort to come forward with information-unless it was for a price.

«How much do you want for the information?» she asked, trying to sound calm and businesslike despite the way she was beginning to tremble from the inside out.

«You hear that, Pou?» Willis went on smiling, sauntering closer. He moved with all the grace of a bear and looked nearly as strong. Serena's gaze focused on his hands. They were huge and ugly, raw-looking with fingers like sausages. «The lady wants to pay us. I can't remember the last time a lady wanted to give me anything, can you?»

Pou apparently took it as a rhetorical remark. He said nothing, but Serena could feel his eyes on her, hot and feral like an animal's. He moved slowly toward her and to her right, his hands behind his back.

«Isn't that what you came here for?» she said, trying to buy time. She forced herself to stand her ground and gripped her can of Mace with a sweaty hand. «Money?»

Willis grinned, an expression that had undoubtedly looked evil even when he'd been in the cradle. One sinisterly arched red brow climbed his forehead while the other hung low over a narrow eye. «No, Miz Serena. We're already gettin' paid. And hell,» he added with a nasty laugh, «this is a job I'd do for free.»

They were moving closer, slowly, menacingly. Serena took a half step back. Fear climbed high in her throat. «I'll pay you double.» She wasn't sure how they were supposed to be earning their money, but she was fairly certain it would be worth paying them double not to do their jobs.

Pou shot a glance up at Willis, looking for a reaction. Willis pretended to consider her offer, humming and making an exaggerated face. After a minute he shook his head and smiled at her again.

«Naw, I don't think so,» he said, rubbing one of his ugly hands across his massive jaw. «You see, the perks of this job are so much better than money. Ain't that right, Pou?»

Perret flinched a little at the sound of his name, tearing his gaze off Serena once again to look up at his partner. «Jesus, Willis, let's just do it,» he whined, suddenly nervous again. «Me, I don' wanna be hanging 'round here if that son of a bitch shows up. He'll kill us!»

«If you're looking for Lucky, he could be here any minute,» Serena said. It wasn't much of a threat, but she was beginning to feel a little desperate.

Willis just smiled and inched a little closer. «Nice try, sweetheart, but I know exactly where Doucet is.

He's at Mouton s with a whiskey bottle and a peroxide blonde who could suck the brass off a doorknob. I don't think he'll be joining us any time soon. Too bad for him. He's gonna miss one hell of a party.»

Serena felt a painful lurch in her middle at the thought of Lucky with another woman. Her concentration broke for just an instant, and in that instant Gene Willis reached out and grabbed her, his big ugly hand manacling her left wrist.

She reacted instantly, pulling the Mace from her purse and hitting the button as she swung it wildly toward Willis's face. He knocked her hand aside with a swift, hard blow that numbed her arm to the elbow and sent the can and her purse sailing, but he was a split second late. The spray caught him in the left eye and he let her go and reeled backward, howling like a wounded beast.

Serena turned and ran. Her heart was in her throat. Her blood roared in her ears. Her body felt as if it belonged to someone else, someone who didn't realize the kind of danger she was in. Her legs wouldn't move fast enough. Her lungs wouldn't draw enough breath for her to scream. She ran down the lane, stumbling because the loafers she wore weren't designed for flight.

Behind her she could hear Willis swearing and shouting at his partner, «Get her, damn you!» Then came the pounding of feet.

She couldn't hope to outrun him. The lane stretched before her, looking longer and longer with not a building in sight. Her only options were to jump in the bayou and swim for it or try to lose herself in the cane. The cane led back to people. She thought of snakes and hesitated. There was no other choice. As Perret's footfalls rushed up on her, she veered suddenly to the left, diving for the cover of the sugarcane.

Perret tackled her from behind, his shoulder hitting her in the middle of the back, driving her forward and knocking her off her feet. She hit the ground with a thud that jarred every part of her. Her captor landed on top of her, the force of his weight blurring her vision and knocking the air from her lungs. Before she could even think of moving he had his knee planted between her shoulder blades, pinning her to the hot, moist earth.

He used a dirty bandanna for a gag, tying it roughly behind her head, incorporating strands of hair into the knot so that no matter how still Serena tried to be, it pulled. Tears of fear and pain flooded her eyes as Perret bound her hands tightly behind her back. They rose up in her throat and she choked and gagged, discovering very quickly that she wouldn't be allowed the luxury of crying. The bandanna with its foul, sour taste hindered not only speech but breathing and swallowing.

Perret rose and pulled her up with him, using the gag like a bridle on a horse. He curled his fingers into the back of it, pulling it unbearably tight, twisting her hair along with it, and jerked her to her feet and steered her back toward Willis.

The big man had regained his feet, but stood half doubled over, one hand pressed to his injured eye. The glare in his good eye was murderous, and Serena suddenly understood why some self-defense instructors preached cooperation rather than aggression. Whatever Willis had had in store for her was nothing compared to what was going through his mind now.

She tried to stop before she got too close to him, but Perret shoved her forward and she had no way of catching herself. Willis knocked her to her knees with a single backhanded blow across the face that brought more tears and the taste of blood.

«You bitch,» he growled, clutching at his eye. «You're gonna pay for this. You're gonna pay till you wished you'd never been born a woman.»

Serena managed to turn and raise herself up as he swung his foot at her. The kick caught her shoulder instead of the side of her head. Pain exploded through her at the blow and then again as she went facefirst to the ground, unable to break the fall.

«Get her in the boat,» Willis ordered, and staggered away, still rubbing at his eye.

Perret once again took hold of her makeshift bridle and hauled her to her feet. They loaded her with a minimum of ceremony into a battered aluminum-hulled boat with a massive outboard motor hanging off the back. It was the kind of thing poachers might use, Serena suspected, with enough horsepower to outrun the game warden-or the odd Lone Ranger. The boat was loaded with traps and tarps, empty whiskey bottles and crushed beer cans. There were a number of small holes in the side above the water line that may well have been caused by bullets. It reeked of swamp water and fish. Perret forced her to sit on the bottom on a wadded-up piece of damp black canvas with her back against the side of the boat, the unadorned edge biting into her spine. Then Pou started the motor and piloted them away from the bank while Willis attempted to flush the Mace from his eye with beer.

The fear that rose inside Serena threatened to swallow her whole. She could feel it growing stronger, clawing at her, tearing at her mind as the boat carried her away from Sheridan land. She wanted to scream, but the screams caught in the back of her throat and choked her. She wanted to run, but there was nowhere to run to; there was nothing around her but black water and swamp.

God, they were taking her into the swamp! The terror she normally felt at the prospect of going out there doubled, then tripled. She better than anyone knew how easy it was for a person to become lost. By the time anyone realized she was missing, it would be virtually impossible to find her. Willis and Perret could do anything they wanted. There would be no witnesses. There would be no one to hear her screams. Suddenly her future looked worse than anything her nightmares had ever conjured.

She wondered wildly what their orders were. What exactly had Burke paid them to do? Scare her into selling? Get her out of the way while he made a deal for the land? Use her as a hostage with Chanson du Terre as her ransom price? It seemed unlikely. Too dangerous to Burke and to Tristar. That left only one possibility. Burke would get her out of the way- permanently.

That deduction brought another wave of fear. Tears gathered in her eyes, but she fought them back. Control. That was her only hope-to keep her head, to keep her cool, to look for the opportunity to escape.

With effort she forced the fear back, compressed it and shoved it into a mental compartment and shut the door. Fear would get her nothing. It was a waste of time and energy. It would do her no good to cry and shake. It would do not good to wish for a rescuer. Lucky wasn't going to swoop down from a tree and save her. He was at Mouton's drowning his sorrows and she was on her own. She could save herself or she could be tortured and killed. It was as simple as that.

Still trembling, she forced herself to look around and take in landmarks. If she concentrated hard enough, she might be able to memorize the route they were taking and retrace it once she managed to get away. She thought it was the same way Lucky had gone to get her to Gifford's, but she wasn't sure. It was growing darker by the second, making it very difficult to see, and the bayou branched off too many times for her to be certain of the turns.

The swamp closed in around them, dark and silent beyond the puttering of the motor. Perret slowed the boat to a crawl as he negotiated the way among a stand of cypress. Willis sprawled in one of the boat's two bucket seats, facing Serena. He had stopped using the beer from his cooler to rinse his eye and had started drinking it instead.

Serena could feel his gaze on her, lingering on her breasts. She tried to shrug it off, but the feeling clung as tenaciously as the mosquitoes that were feasting on the exposed skin of her throat and face. She had worn a long-sleeved blouse and slacks, knowing better than to go out into the fields at dusk uncovered, but she had forgotten Lucky's warning about her perfume. She had dabbed some on after her shower, needing to feel feminine after a day of grubbing around in the ashes of the machine shed, and hadn't thought to wash it off before leaving the house.

Willis slid down from his perch to kneel on the tarp in front of her. Serena eyed him warily. His left eye was nearly swollen shut, giving him an even more monstrous appearance than before. Beer had spilled unheeded over his shirt, adding to the sour stench of his sweat. He raised a hand and brushed his rough-skinned knuckles along her jaw, smiling like a snake in the fading light.

«They don't call that Cajun bastard Lucky for nothing, do they?» he said. «You're some fancy piece.»

Serena fought the urge to shrink away from his touch. An animal like Willis would feed on fear. She bit down on the gag and schooled her features into what she hoped was a blank mask.

«What would a lady like you see in that coonass trash anyway?» he asked, his eyes roaming over her as if the answer might be written somewhere on her body. His leering grin spread across his thin, hard lips and his good eye lit up. «I'll bet he's hung like a stallion. Do proper ladies like you go for that? A man with the right kind of tool for the job? Who would'a guessed?»

He chuckled, apparently as amused by her lack of response as he would have been by a protest.

«You know,» he went on, still stroking her jaw, «when I was up in Angola I had a picture of a pretty blonde on the wall of my cell. I used to dream about doing her every night. She looked a lot like you… only she was naked.»

He lowered his hand from her chin to the first button on her white silk blouse and popped it open with a flick of thumb and forefinger. Bile rose in Serena's throat, but she swallowed it as another pearl button gave way and another. She bit down harder on the gag and stared straight ahead as Willis opened her blouse and feasted his eyes on her breasts.

«Nice,» he whispered, leaning closer. He traced the lacy edge of her bra once, then again, this time dipping his finger inside the fabric to caress the slope of her breast. «I can hardly wait to see the rest.»

Serena couldn't stop the involuntary shiver that rippled across her skin. The thought of this man putting his big ugly hands all over her body, touching her softest, most private flesh, was utterly repulsive.

Willis caught the reaction and gave a laugh that held more menace than humor. He engulfed one breast in his hand and gave it a squeeze that bordered on painful.

«You might as well get used to it, Lady Serena, 'cause ol' Pou and me are gonna have you every way there is before we're through with you.»

She nearly vomited at the mental images his warning conjured. Serena had counseled rape victims. She'd heard tales of abuse that had made her wonder what kind of God allowed such atrocities. Details came back to her now, vivid and horrible. She flicked a glance over the side of the boat at the inky water and wondered fleetingly if she wouldn't be better off drowning herself now.

It was then that they finally reached their destination. Perret guided the boat in alongside a ramshackle dock and cut the engine. Willis hefted himself and his beer cooler out of the boat and started up the incline toward the cabin, leaving Serena for his lackey. Pou's eyes fastened on the open front of her blouse and he reached out to touch her, but pulled back at the sound of Willis's voice.

«Wait till we get her inside,» he ordered. «Goddamn mosquitoes are driving me nuts.»

The cabin looked abandoned. A tar-paper shack on stilts, it was the sort of place Serena had imagined Lucky living in before she'd seen his house. The yard was little more than mud and stringy grass. It was littered with junk-beer cans and bottles, tires, an old refrigerator with the door hanging open. There was a rusted car of indeterminate age sitting some distance away in a stand of weeds.

A car. That had to mean there was a road. But what good would a road do her if she was on foot? They would run her down just as they had before. Her only hope would be to lose herself in the woods.

What a hope-to lose herself in the dead of night, bound and gagged, in a wilderness that terrified her. Her old fear stirred strongly, but the new one was even worse. She had survived the swamp before; she would not survive what Willis and Perret had in store for her.

Willis had gone inside. Perret steered her across the yard, his fingers wound into the back of the gag again, pulling her hair. He was a small man, only about as tall as she was and thin, anemic-looking. His chest had a sunken look and his dirty jeans clung low on nonexistent hips. He wouldn't be nearly as strong as Willis, but he was quick. If she could manage to get free of him, she would have to do a better job of escaping than she had the first time.

Serena stepped up her pace toward the cabin so he was no longer shoving her along, but quickening his step.

«You in a hurry, chere?» he asked, laughing, displaying an alarming array of crooked rotten teeth. «Me too.»

Sticking her right foot out to trip Perret, Serena pulled up abruptly and twisted her upper body sharply away to the left. One second Perret was chortling like a fiend, enjoying his dominance over her, the next second he was on the ground, tangled among a mess of old tires and rusty chicken wire.

Serena wasted no time looking back to see if he was coming after her. She dashed into the woods and ran blindly, dodging trees at the last second, stumbling over roots. She zigzagged, cut back, turned again, and ran on. Branches cut at her face and tore at her clothes. There was no light, only darkness and the blacker shapes of trees. She slammed her shoulder into one and had to stop and double over while pain rocked through her.

Crouching there against the trunk of a persimmon tree, she took quick stock of her various aches, all of them renewed by this latest blow. Her hands had started to go numb behind her back, but she was very aware of her right forearm where Willis had struck to dislodge the can of Mace. It felt as if it had been hit with an ax handle. Her left shoulder had taken Willis's boot and now the tree trunk as well, and it throbbed relentlessly. Her muscles had started to cramp from the awkward position of her arms. There were a dozen other assorted pains, but at least she was alive and free. For the moment.

Her breath soughed in and out of her lungs, muffled by the gag. The cloth had loosened somewhat from Perret pulling on it, and Serena thought she might be able to work it free. She pressed her face against the trunk of the tree and rubbed her cheek against it, trying to work the bandanna down. The hard, scaly bark of the tree scraped her skin, but she persisted. Progress came gradually, but the gag finally fell free of her mouth. Still knotted into her hair in back, it hung like a noose around her neck. She leaned over and spat, trying in vain to get the taste of it out of her mouth.

Something slithered in the underbrush to her right, and Serena bolted, straining to see in the velvet darkness. She could hear the movement but couldn't tell what it was or precisely where it was. Memories crowded in her mind and tears rose up the back of her throat as she scanned the darkness all around, wondering wildly what awaited her. The swamp came alive at night, alive with hunters and the hunted.

«God, that's me,» she whispered, tears of despair stinging her eyes.

She didn't have the benefit of natural camouflage most animals of the swamp possessed. She had to stand out like a beacon in the night in her white blouse and khaki slacks.

Some distance behind her she could hear someone crashing through the growth. As she forced herself to press on, she wondered if Perret had come after her on his own or if Willis had joined him. She changed directions again and started running.

If only she could see. If only she had the use of her hands. If only she weren't so damned scared. If only Lucky were there.

Lucky. She wondered if she'd ever see him again. It seemed a stupid thing to think of, all things considered, but she wondered if he had any idea how much she loved him. She wondered if she'd had any idea herself before now. Running for her life put a lot of things into perspective, and she found herself making promises to God. If I get out of this, I'll patch things up with Shelby, I'll forgive Gifford, I'll give more to charity, I'll try harder to reach Lucky.

She would see him again if she kept running. She had to believe that. If she kept running, everything would turn out all right. She would be safe, Burke would get caught, she would see Lucky again. If she kept running. If she got away.

The night air was like fire in her lungs. She could no longer hear anything except her own breathing and the thunderous beating of her heart. Her head was pounding. The damp, musty scent of the forest filled her nostrils. The spongy ground seemed to dip and rise beneath her feet. She felt completely disoriented, almost dizzy, hanging somewhere between hysteria and delirium.

She thought that if she could somehow get to Lucky's house she could use his CB radio to call for help or maybe she could find his gun. But she didn't make it to Lucky's house. An exposed root caught the toe of her loafer and pitched her headlong into the blackness. She landed on her face at the booted feet of Mean Gene Willis.