Hall, Jessica (20 page)

"It's not her fault."

She drew in some smoke and blew it out. "Has she told you
anything yet? Or is her memory still on vacation?"

"We haven't had time to talk."

"Sable Duchesne comes from the bayou, and bayou people stick
together. She could be trying to protect someone."

"No, not her." He reined in his temper. "She came
after Caine Gantry by herself tonight. When I got there, he was about to beat
the crap out of her. In front of his crew."

"Bullshit." But suddenly Terri sounded uncertain.
"J. D., I found the murder weapon tonight. It was a culling pole."

"Then you should be checking out Gantry."

"I will, but in the meantime, Sable is our only witness.
She's the only one who knows who it belongs to." When J. D. didn't say
anything, she sighed. "What am I going to tell the captain? Or your
brother, for that matter?"

He hadn't considered what his family must be thinking, either.
"Cort's back in town?"

"Oh, yeah, just like Jesus—Cort's back, and he's really
pissed." She sighed. "Don't do this, J. D. Tell me where you are, and
I'll come out and help you bring her in. We'll keep her in protective custody
while we run the investigation. Be reasonable."

"Someone told the killer that she was at Mercy. The only
people who knew where she was were cops. I can't risk it. Sorry."

"Is there something you're not telling me here?"

He trusted his partner. "Off the record."

"Hell, yes."

"Marc LeClare was Sable's biological father."

There was another lengthy silence as Terri absorbed that.
"Holy shit. Are you serious? You are. Holy
shit."

"They didn't know about each other until a few weeks
ago." He told her what he knew of Sable's fledgling community program to
get health and educational services to the Cajun people living on the bayou,
and how Marc had intended to support his newly found daughter's work.
"They were meeting at the warehouse to see if it would serve as
headquarters for her project. Knowing Marc, I'd bet he intended to publicly
acknowledge her as his daughter, too."

"Okay, I agree—that puts a different spin on things,"
Terri said. "But I can't keep something like this to myself. I have to
talk to the wife about it."

He considered that. "All right. Ask her, but try to keep it
quiet if you can."

"What about you?"

"I'll do what I can from this end," he told her,
"but I'm depending on you to work the case from the city. Question Gantry
and his crew. If anyone can find out who was after Marc, you can."

"Sure, I can fit that in between catching bullets in my teeth
and leaping over tall buildings in a single bound." She snorted. "I'm
already regretting saying this, but all right. I'll see what I can track
down."

"You'll handle it. Tell me about the murder weapon."

She described the wooden culling pole. "Oh, and after we
dropped it off at forensics to be tested, your brother mentioned something
about the bayou."

"Like what?"

"Like tearing it apart with his bare hands until he finds
you, and you know how your brother is. So if you don't want to get caught
between him, Gantry, and the would-have-been-governor's daughter, I suggest you
two get the hell out of Dodge."

Cort would be a problem. "Can you stall him?"

"Not without using a syringe, but I'll try." She yawned
again. "You know, I really need my vacation. I think when this is all
over, I'll spend a week down at the cottage."

J. D. watched an egret fly across the moon. Terri's parents had
left her a vacation home on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain, and she'd
lent it to him and Cort a couple of times when they'd gone fishing. The cottage
sat back away from the edge of the lake, secluded in the middle of the twenty
acres of trees on the property. His partner liked to go there at a moment's
notice, so she always kept it stocked and left a key in a planter on the porch.
She also kept her Harley there, locked up in a shed—also with a spare key
hidden in the fender.

Caine watched the first hint of blue sky appear behind the gray
green top of the tree line. Soon the sun would rise to burn off the low-lying
shroud of mist blanketing the water and skirting the knobby cypress roots, and
would reveal the brown and green and silver of the bayou's colors. It was
usually his favorite time of the day, when he could sit on the empty dock and
watch the world wake up.

He was tired. Despite the long hours of work from the day before,
and three beers at Dee's, he hadn't been able to sleep.

I won't be able to until I find Billy and finish this.

He thought of Sable, and how she had looked at him last night. He
shouldn't have touched her like that, shouldn't have kissed her. He'd only been
trying to get rid of her. But the feel of her under his hands had made him
forget about Cecilia's phone call, and Billy, and every other rational thought
in his head. He'd thought about humiliating her, for what she'd done to him.

Instead? He'd nearly begged her to forgive him.

Sable had never known that he had watched her most of his life,
from the day her mother had brought her back to the bayou as a baby to the
night she'd run away from Tulane. He had appointed himself her guardian,
keeping an eye on her when she was little, always hovering just out of sight so
he wouldn't scare her. Sable had grown from a sweet child of light and laughter
into a hauntingly beautiful young woman before his eyes, and his feelings had
changed accordingly.

He would have set himself on fire before telling her how he felt,
though. Especially after last night, when he'd done everything he could to
chase her off.

His fist knotted against his thigh. He was done with her, had been
done with her ever since the night she had shown up at the boathouse, running
from her rich Creole boyfriend. She'd made it clear she had nothing but
contempt for who and what they were. It had killed the love that he'd carried
inside him for so long. He'd gone out the very next night and buried himself in
willing women, and hadn't emerged since. He
didn't need her approval,
didn't want it. The hell with Sable Duchesne and what she thought of him.

Billy was at the warehouse, wasn't he?

Terri Vincent's coming to talk to him was only the final sour note
on the entire night. Since she'd left the bayou to become a cop he hadn't given
her much thought, but she was smart, she knew him, and unless he took care of
this business with Billy, she'd be back.

"Hey, boss." The pier planks creaked as his new foreman,
John, wandered out to the boat. "You're in early. Hear about the accident
down the road?"

"What accident?"

"They found that cop's car in the river about three miles
from here." John nodded in the direction of the road. "Somebody took
some shots at him and Isabel."

Caine's throat closed up. Billy hadn't been hunting him after all.
"Anyone hurt?"

"Don't rightly know. Seems they might have gotten out of the
car before it sank, but there's been no sign of them since."

Isabel, alone in the swamp with that city boy cop. With Billy
hunting them.

Caine put aside the trap he was repairing and checked the sky. It
would soon be light enough to get the boats out on the water, and he intended
to have all of his crews out today. He picked up the newspaper he'd gotten on
the way home from Dee's and handed it to John. "Make sure everyone who
didn't see her last night gets a look at her." He tapped the article that
showed Sable's photo.

John frowned. "You think she's gonna come back here?"

Elizabet had just finished breakfast when Mae announced that Laure
LeClare had arrived, and she quickly rose from her place at the table.
"Thank you, Mae," she said before she hurried to the front of the
house.

"Laure!" It wrenched her heart to see her dearest friend
looking so wan and lost, but she kept her expression welcoming and came forward
to kiss her on both cheeks. "You should have called; I would have come
over to you."

"Forgive me for intruding at such an ungodly hour."
Laure's voice sounded slightly hoarse and uneven.

"Don't be silly. I'm glad you're here. Come in."
Elizabet guided her friend into the parlor, and glanced back at the hovering
housekeeper. "Please bring tea for us, Mae, and some pastries."

"Don't fuss, Eliza." Marc's widow sat down carefully on
one of the fleur-de-lis tapestry love seats, then straightened her shoulders
and worked up a ghost of her usual charming smile. "I promise, I'm much
better today. I'm sorry to bother you so early. I just... needed to get out of
the house."

"You did exactly the right thing." Elizabet sat down
beside her friend and took one of her cold hands in hers. "I thought
Moriah said her mother would be stopping in this morning."

"I slipped out before she arrived. Moriah's still sleeping;
the poor child stayed up half the night pacing the floor and watching over
me." Her voice shook as she added, "Marc thought a great deal of her,
you know."

"She is the sweetest girl." Elizabet pressed her hand to
the other woman's hollow cheek. "I am so sorry, Laure. I would do anything
to spare you this pain."

"I truly am feeling a little steadier today." She made a
vague gesture. "Aimee will help with the arrangements, and the governor
promised to send someone to coordinate the media. It's simply getting through
the next week now, is all." She bowed her head. "I've been so...
muddled, Eliza. I couldn't put two thoughts together that made any sense."

"You shouldn't be trying to push yourself to do things. We'll
see you through this, I promise." Elizabet nodded to her housekeeper as
she came in bearing the tea tray, and Mae placed it on the low table in front
of them before withdrawing from the room. "The police will find who did
this, and in time it will seem like only a bad dream."

"Or they won't find him, and it will turn into a nightmare
that never ends," Laure murmured, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears
before she rapidly blinked them away. "My poor Marc. How could this have
happened to him? Was it me? Did I push him into taking on this campaign?"

"Nonsense. Marc loved you and you were a great asset to him.
As for the campaign, you know how he thrived on it. He would have been a fine
governor." Elizabet prepared a cup of tea and dropped two sugar cubes in
it. "Have you spoken to Jacob?" she asked as she handed it to Laure.
Jacob Pernard, Marc's attorney, was one of the most influential attorneys in
the state as well as the city, and could do the most to help Laure through the
difficult days ahead.

"I think I remember him calling." She looked down at the
delicate cup in her thin hands as if unable to fathom what to do with it.
"He said something about the district attorney wanting to speak with me,
although I can't imagine why."

"They'll have questions about Marc and what he
was
doing yesterday." Elizabet added cream to her own tea and kept her
expression and voice deliberately bland. "You heard about the young woman
who survived the fire, didn't you?"

Laure nodded. "Isabel Duchesne—her picture has been all over
the television."

"Did you or Marc know her?"

"I think Marc did, a little. He mentioned that he was making
a contribution to a charity she was involved in." Laure lifted her
shoulders. "I had the feeling he was worried about her, but he didn't say
much." She sipped from her cup.

So the little tramp tried to sink her claws into poor Marc, as
well.
Elizabet squelched a surge of outrage. "Did he tell you why
he was meeting her yesterday?"

She nodded. "He was going to let her use that old warehouse
as a welfare center of some kind. I couldn't understand why he'd want to,
considering how much trouble the Cajuns have created for the business, but you
know Marc. He was so forgiving toward everyone."

For a moment Elizabet debated what to tell her friend. It was one
thing to shield Laure from the ugliness of Marc's tragic death, but quite
another to watch Isabel Duchesne ruin Marc's good name. Elizabet remembered how
J. D. had been after the girl had run away—he'd walked around like a ghost for
months.

Laure wasn't nearly as strong as her son had been.

"I knew Isabel Duchesne ten years ago. She dated Jean-Delano
while they were at Tulane. They broke up after she was involved in a terrible
incident. She attacked some of his friends." Elizabet nodded at her
friend's shocked look. "Yes, I felt the same when I saw her photo on
television. I couldn't believe she'd come back to New Orleans, not after what
she did."