Bayou Hero (25 page)

Dear God, she couldn’t kill Landry. He was her brother. She loved him. Alia loved him, and he’d done nothing wrong. What safety Mary Ellen had found as a teenager had been thanks to him!

And Miss Viola. And if they were right—which Alia’s gut said they were—Mary Ellen had killed Miss Viola.

“Where would she take him?” Jimmy asked.

Too many people around his apartment. Too much mess to use her own home. Too damn big a city to narrow down the choices. Then, suddenly, the answer was there. “Where it all started.”

Jimmy swore as the sound of a scraping chair came over the line. “I’ll meet you at the admiral’s house. Don’t you go inside without me, Alia. You understand? You wait until—”

She ended the call. Still clutching the doll and book, she started toward the steps. By the time she reached them, she was running.

* * *

Landry had always given himself credit for being a good judge of character. Between his adolescence and years working behind the bar, he’d thought he had a pretty good handle on people. He’d thought the one person he knew best in the entire world was his sister.

He’d been so damn wrong.

He shifted, the thick layers of duct tape keeping him from moving more than an inch or two in any direction. His shoulders ached from being pulled back so sharply, and his head hurt from the contact with a small marble statue that had stood next to his mother’s jewelry case for as long as he could remember. Blood trickled down the back of his neck, a tickle that would have been annoying under any other circumstances.

Under the threat of death, it didn’t seem so important.

“Mary Ellen.”

“Shut up.” She didn’t look up from the chest where she was rummaging through the drawers one-handed, grasping a long, nasty-looking knife in the other.

He’d met her at the Saint Charles Avenue house a few hours ago by his best guess. She’d been pale and shaky as she’d unlocked the mudroom door, so fidgety he’d needed to steady the key in her hand. Once inside, though, her nerves had calmed. She hadn’t trembled at all as they’d climbed the stairs to the second floor, not even when she’d led the way into their parents’ room. She had glanced at the stripped-down bed where Jeremiah had died without any reaction at all, and the dried blood splattering across the wall hadn’t fazed her.

He hadn’t expected it to faze him, but it did.

She’d cried no tears, hadn’t said much but had gone straight to the two-hundred-year-old rosewood table where Camilla’s jewelry chest sat. He was missing a few minutes after that. The next thing he knew, he was sitting in a chair, wrists and ankles bound, and dripping blood on the petit point upholstery of a chair even older than the desk, and a stranger was inhabiting his sister’s body.

It was a hard thing to take in, that Mary Ellen had killed their mother, their father, sweet old Miss Viola and now she intended to kill him. Mary Ellen, who loved kittens and babies and was so fragile and delicate and had never hurt anyone in her entire life.

But all that sweetness and gentleness had just been the outside. Inside, she was more broken than anyone he’d known, and that fact broke his heart.

She moved on from the chest to a bureau made of curly maple that some Landry had brought from France before Louisiana was a state. “What are you looking for?” he asked.

This time she glanced at him, an expression he’d never seen on her face, a coldness he’d never seen in her eyes. “He had a ring. I didn’t have time to find it that morning, thanks to Constance coming in to work early.”

“What ring?”

“Like this.” Shoving a hand into her pocket, she pulled out two heavy gold and onyx rings, identical but for size. “They all had one. This one is Bradley Wallace’s. This one is Marco Gaudette’s. The lucky bastard survived, but I won’t make any more mistakes. A couple more, and I’ll have the entire set.”

She’d attacked Gaudette? Aw, jeez, Landry’s fear grew. “Why, Mary Ellen? After all this time...”

Slowly she came to stand a half dozen feet in front of him. “I was a good daughter. After everything they did to me, I still came over here every week. I had lunches and dinners, I brought the kids to play, I did everything a dutiful daughter should do. And one night, after dinner, after the kids went to play outside with Laura, he smiled at me, and he said, ‘Faith will be turning ten before long. I have a special celebration planned for her. Do you remember our special celebration for your tenth birthday, Mellen?’”

Landry had forgotten that was what Jeremiah had called her. Not out of affection but, he’d always believed, because she wasn’t worth making the effort to say her entire name.

“I
died
that day, and he was
smiling
. Threatening to do the same damn thing to my baby.” She was shaking again, but this time it was rage. It mottled her skin and gave her words a staccato, machine-gun effect. “I talked to Mama. I begged her to do something, to stop him this time, to help protect my baby, but she just brushed me off. Like always. So I took the girls home, but I came back that night. I lured her away—got her to write a note saying she was leaving him—and I buried her inside that damn crypt the way she should have buried me all those years ago.” Laughter burst from her. “It was so easy. She was so damn drunk. I said, ‘Lie here and rest,’ and she did.”

Sickness roiling through him, Landry squeezed his eyes shut. He better understood how Mary Ellen had blocked out so much about the past. He was way older, way stronger, and damned if he didn’t want to erase the last hour from his memory.

“I was gone for a little while,” she said conversationally, seating herself on a lacquered stool, “but when he brought up Faith’s birthday again, I came back. I stopped him. I made sure he would never, ever hurt either of my girls or any other girl again.”

Landry swallowed hard. “I understand killing him, really I do. And Bradley Wallace and all the others. But Miss Viola... Mary Ellen, she loved you like her own child. Why did you have to hurt her?”

“Because she knew, and she did nothing.”

It was the answer he expected, the one he and Alia had already discussed, but it was no better coming from Mary Ellen. He had hoped for a more satisfying explanation, for enlightenment, but got only disappointment. “She forced him to send you away to school. She got you away from him. She made him stop hurting you.”

“By making me more miserable than ever! She took away everything I knew, everything I loved! I died all over again, Landry, while you and she were smugly patting yourselves on the back for saving me! Going to that awful place destroyed what little world I had left!”

He truly didn’t get it. He’d known what she was suffering here at home. How could the boarding school have been worse? She’d been
safe
there. She’d had a chance to grow up, grow stronger, to heal, and she hated him and Miss Viola for putting her there?

His little sister
hated
him. Intended to kill him.

Dear God, she had been so much more damaged than he’d ever suspected.

“We were trying to help you. I thought—” He’d thought they were dealing with a reasonably normal girl, given the circumstances, one who would be happy once she was out of the abusive environment, the way he had been. Neither he nor Miss Viola had had a clue that Mary Ellen might have been beyond saving.

“They say I tried to kill myself there.” She shrugged carelessly. “I don’t know, maybe I did. I was gone then.”

That was the second reference she’d made to being gone. Puzzled, he asked, “Gone where?”

“Just...gone. I come when I’m needed and go when I’m not.”

She sounded...fractured. As if she’d been living someplace other than the land of denial. Was that how she coped—by
coming
and
going
? Had she created some safe place in her head where she could hide even when in the middle of the ugly things?

He’d done that a few times back then—retreated into his mind, where the pain and humiliation and hatred didn’t exist. Where he could pretend nothing was happening, no one was hurting him. But it never lasted longer than the act itself. He’d
always
come back to himself within minutes.

Had Mary Ellen got lost in that retreat?

“I’m sorry, Mary Ellen. I’m so sorry.” It wasn’t much, but what else did he have to offer?

Grimly he directed his thoughts from the past to the present. If he didn’t think of something, there wasn’t going to be any future for him. No one knew where he was. They’d missed him at work by now, but she’d taken his cell phone and smashed it. His hands were secured, his ankles even more so. He could knock the chair over, but what good would it do him unless he managed to take her down with him?

Eventually Alia would come looking for him, he was sure of that, but would she be in time? And what would happen if she was? Would she kill Mary Ellen? Would his sister kill her? He knew Alia was strong and well able to take care of herself—those were two of the things he loved about her—but damn if he wanted her to put herself in danger to save him. If Mary Ellen hurt her...

Bleakness settled in his gut. This night wasn’t going to end without someone getting hurt, probably even dying.

Please, God, don’t let it be Alia.

* * *

The gate to the Jackson house was open, a lonely piece of crime-scene tape dangling from one side. Wishing for full tactical gear, Alia secured the Taser into the waistband of her skintight running shorts, then gripped the pistol loosely in her right hand. Her cell phone was tucked inside the ribbed band of the sock on her right foot, its ringer turned to vibrate.

Jimmy would be here soon with the cavalry, but did they have that long to wait? Landry had been with Mary Ellen for about two hours now. He could already be dead.

No. Not possible.
If she didn’t believe it, it couldn’t be, and she damn sure didn’t believe it. Couldn’t.

She waited a minute, then half of another one before she started up the brick drive. She’d driven past the house before parking at the curb, had seen Landry’s car in the drive, lights on inside. There was no sign of Mary Ellen’s car. She must have parked some distance away so no nosy neighbors could place her at the scene.

There was an eeriness to the quiet. Houses could carry the essence of their former owners, and Jeremiah’s essence had been evil. Knowing what she did, she shivered as she approached the back door. Her only other time here, a windowpane had been broken. She didn’t need such measures. When her fingers wrapped around the cool metal knob and turned with a quiet click, the door swung inward.

A light shone over the kitchen floor, lighting the dark bloodstain that marked where Constance Marks had died. No one had been in to clean the place yet, explaining the faint mustiness and the fainter blood scent. It replaced the chocolate taste in her mouth with sourness rising from her unsettled stomach.

Careful to walk lightly, she made her way into the hall, then to the bottom of the stairs. The house was too big, built too solidly, for voices to carry, but the light shining from above led her cautiously up each stair.

As she crept along the hall, carpet muffling her steps, she heard the first hum of voices. They came from the master bedroom, where a thin wedge of light spilled through the partly opened door.

“The girls are safe now, Mary Ellen,” Landry was saying. “You can stop. No one’s going to hurt them.”

Alia flattened herself against the wall on the opposite side of the door. She had little view of the room, but she could see Mary Ellen, sitting on a stool, a kitchen knife held loosely in her hands. She was so slender, so damn innocent looking, that a person could be forgiven for thinking she’d never hurt a fly. Harm the brother she adored? Never.

Alia would never forgive her if she succeeded.

“Don’t you get it, Landry? They’ll never be truly safe. Do you think Daddy and his friends are the only pedophiles out there? Our world was small when we were children, and yet
five
of the men in it were perverts!
Five!
And that’s just the ones we know about.” She shook her head. “My girls will never be completely safe. But at least these five bastards will never hurt them. I’m gonna make sure of that.”

“I don’t care if every one of them dies,” he said heavily, his voice coming from somewhere directly in front of Mary Ellen. “But what about Faith and Mariela? How are they going to grow up without you? You’re their mama. They need you.”

“And they’ll have me.”

“No. They’ll catch you, Mary Ellen, and they’ll lock you away.”

Not in prison, Alia thought, but in a psychiatric hospital, because this was certainly not a sane person in front of her.

“What will the kids think?” Landry went on. “How will they get over it?”

“No one suspects me. No one even really knows me because I come and go.” Rising to her feet, she turned defiant, gesturing with the knife to make her point. “And even if I do get caught, at least my daughters will know I was willing to kill to protect them. That’s more than you and I ever got from Mama.”

Just how much
not sane
was she? No one really knew her? She came and went? Was it possible she suffered from dissociative identity disorder? Was this a separate personality from the Mary Ellen everyone knew and loved, a protector who kept her safe like no one else had ever done?

Alia had no psychological training. She knew not all professionals believed DID was a valid diagnosis. She didn’t know how to talk to Mary Ellen in a way that might defuse her rage. She didn’t know if she could reason with her.

But she did know how to deal with an armed suspect with a hostage she intended to kill. Lifting her pistol, giving the door a nudge with her left foot so that it silently swung open a few more inches, she stepped into the room, sighted and gently squeezed the trigger.

Chapter 14

T
he worst of summer was over, though on a hot, sunny October Saturday, it was hard to tell. Landry was sprawled on the back steps of the Creole cottage, a bottle of beer cradled loosely in both hands. He had chicken marinating in brown sugar and cinnamon; he’d microwaved a half dozen potatoes until they were semitender, then sliced them thickly before coating them with olive oil and chopped parsley; and since green tomatoes were hard to come by now, he’d bought the firmest red ones he could find. Different flavor, but still well worth grilling.

All he needed before he put the food on the grill was someone to help eat it.

That changed in half a minute as Alia ran around the corner of the house, arms in the air cheering. Spinning to trot backward, she beamed a smile at her followers. “You made it! You ran a whole mile! Yay!”

Panting and sweaty, Faith and Mariela stumbled to the ground in a heap at his feet. They were dressed like the runners they were slowly becoming, in shorts, tanks and sneakers, picked to match Alia’s.

“Why don’t you run, Uncle Landry?” Mariela asked.

He gave her a look of horror. “That’s Alia’s passion, not mine.”

“What’s your passion?” Faith asked.

“You are. And you—” he nodded at her sister “—and you,” he added when Alia sat down beside him. Even though she was damp with sweat, he nuzzled her neck, making the girls giggle.

“Okay, you two, hit the shower,” Alia commanded. “Bathe, clean clothes, then lunch.”

How could a seven-year-old and a ten-year-old rattle the entire house just by running up the steps? he wondered, then the screen door slammed and he was alone with Alia and he forgot all about the noise.

He smiled at her. “There was a time—” he didn’t mention that it was that last day, the day his sister had tried to kill him, the day Alia had shot her “—when I thought those two would love you and want to be just like you when they grow up. I was right.”

Her grin was smug. “They are crazy about me, aren’t they?”

“So am I.”

She rewarded him with a big kiss, then rested her head against his shoulder. They spent a lot of time that way, just being close, touching, not having to talk or anything else. They were the best times of his life.

Well, after the times they made love, of course.

“How’s Scott?” she asked.

His brother-in-law had dropped off the girls that morning, but they’d dragged Alia out for a run before she’d had a chance to say more than hello. He would pick them up tomorrow night after a weekend visit with Mary Ellen at the high-security psychiatric facility where she’d gone shortly after her arrest.

“He’s...” Grieving. Shocked. Dismayed. Finding out that the wife he loved dearly had murdered seven people had stunned him right out of his comfortable life. Landry wasn’t certain he would ever find his way back to normalcy, but he was trying. For the girls’ sake, for Mary Ellen’s, for his own.

“Yeah. I know,” Alia said, understanding the answer Landry hadn’t given. “How are you?”

She asked that question from time to time, tentatively at first, as if making sure he’d forgiven her for shooting his sister. Over time it had become more confident, more of a just-checking sort of thing.

He turned on the steps to face her, taking her left hand in his, gently twisting the engagement ring on her fourth finger. “I see the girls almost every day. My sister is alive and getting help. No more people I know are dying and Jeremiah’s partners in crime have been outed to the whole world. On top of that, I’m in love with the sexiest, most beautiful woman I’ve ever known—”

“And she loves you, too,” she confirmed.

“So I’m good.” He kissed her, not a lazy fifteen-minute sort of kiss but sweet all the same.

“I’m damn good.”

* * * * *

And if you loved this novel, you’ll enjoy these other suspenseful stories from Marilyn Pappano:

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COPPER LAKE ENCOUNTER

COPPER LAKE CONFIDENTIAL

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Available now from Harlequin Romantic Suspense!