KILLING ME SOFTLY (37 page)

Heart hammering, Renee could see it all, the dense undergrowth and the knobby cypress knees, the ethereal Spanish moss and the sun cutting through the branches—and the tree.

Not names, she realized on a hard surge of adrenaline. There was no Evan or Lynn. But there was an Evangeline—the old oak with the massive branch that swooped like a bench to the ground, the one he'd always loved, the one he'd called the Evangeline tree—the one Cain had photographed.

"My God," she said because it was all so clear now. She'd had a few pieces all along, but Cain had had others, and Val had possessed the rest. They were all needed to see the truth. "The tree."

Val stilled. "What tree?"

"In the swamp," Renee said, and her heart pounded hard on the revelation. "Where he died."

"There are thousands of trees in the swamp."

"But not like this one. It was special to him."

Val's eyes lit. "Then take me there."

And surrender what Adrian had given his life to protect?
Never
, Renee wanted to shout, but she saw the gleam in Val's eyes and realized how desperate she was to find what Adrian had hidden. Maybe it was more than just the Goose. Maybe his investigation had yielded other fruit—fruit that terrified Val.

The reporter Renee had once been screamed that there was more going on here than the mere search for an electronic device. And the survival instincts Cain had helped her hone went off like a string of firecrackers.

"I can't," Renee said, pleased by the despondency she injected into her voice. "I don't know where it is." Val didn't need to know Renee had been there just that morning.

"That's not a problem. I know where the area is."

"But like you said, there are thousands of trees."

Val's gaze hardened. "Then I guess you're not so useful after all, are you?" she asked returning the gun to point at Renee's chest. "Looks like this time there will be a body."

"Wait." Adrenaline raced harder, faster. She'd risked everything to come back and reclaim her life. She wasn't going to let Val steal it without a fight. "There is a way," she said. "I know how to find the tree."

"Did she say where she was going?" Cain asked over the roaring in his ears. Vaguely he was aware of the edge to his voice, the way the assistant hotel manager's eyes widened, but he was beyond the point of caring.

"I'm afraid not," she said, coming around the hotel's reception counter. "Should she have? Is something wrong?"

No one had seen her in almost three hours. No one had heard from her. No one knew where she'd gone. "I want you to call me, you hear?" he instructed. "The second she shows up, the second you hear from her, you're to call me."

She nodded, but Cain was already turning from her. He'd just stepped outside when his mobile phone rang. He grabbed it without breaking pace, glanced at the caller ID box and saw the words
wireless caller,
stopped dead in his tracks.

"Vannah?" he roared, fumbling with the buttons.

"Cain."

Her voice. Sweet God have mercy, it was her voice. "Where the hell are you?"

"I'm where you told me to be," she said, and her voice was oddly calm, almost cold. "On my way out of town."

His hand tightened around the phone. "What the hell—"

"Because you were right," she said in that same monochromatic tone. "I never should have come back."

His heart pounded harder. "Where are you,
cher?
Let me come get you—"

"It's too late for that," she said. "I thought I could walk back into my life, but I can't. People change. Life goes on. It took coming back to realize that I was better off away from here. That I was happier."

His gut twisted on her words.

"But I'm hoping you'll do me a favor," she said blandly. "For old times' sakes."

Coming from anyone else, the request might have made sense. But not from Savannah. She didn't ask favors, especially not from someone who'd slammed the door in her face.

"What kind of favor?" he asked in the same deadly quiet voice he'd relied on to coerce information from informants.

"Two things really," she said after a brief hesitation. "First I was hoping you could tell me how to get to Adrian's tree, the one that's in the picture hanging in your gallery. I'd love to see it one last time."

Everything inside of him went brutally still.
"And the second?"

If she heard the silent understanding in his voice, she gave no indication. "I know I told you I wanted her back," she said, and finally, finally, a trace of emotion leaked through. "But I was hoping you'd keep feeding my dog."

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

T
he sun slipped low on the horizon, bathing the swamp in a crimson glow. Shadows fell from the trees and dripped from the gnarled undergrowth, while a cool breeze flirted with the Spanish moss. The air was damp and heavy, expectant. So were the birds. They cawed from all directions, unseen from their perches high atop the cypress and the oaks, but Renee felt them watching every step she took. Every step Val took.

They'd been walking single file for almost thirty minutes. The tree lay just ahead. The gun jabbed into her neck served a constant reminder that time was almost out.

Her heart twisted on the realization. She'd been so sure, so completely, totally sure that Cain would recognize the silent alarm she'd tried to trip.

But now doubt crept in, and with it came the sobering realization that there was no guarantee he remembered the brief exchange at her brother's grave. Time had passed. Lives had moved on. Deception had marred what they'd once shared. His voice, normally rich and dark and drugging, had been calm and detached, clinical almost, as he'd given her directions. There'd been a brutal note of finality to his goodbye.

This time there
will
be a body.

The memory lashed through Renee as she shoved at a tangle of vines and neared the hollow where Adrian's tree had sprawled for over a century. Untouched. Unmarred. A strong solid reminder of beauty and sanctity, innocence. The place where Val planned to kill her—and frame Cain.

"This way," Renee said, deliberately steering Val in the wrong direction. The second she led her to the tree, her usefulness was over. If she could mislead her until the sun went down … the darkness could once again be her friend.

"What was that?" Val asked, and only then did Renee realize that she'd stopped.

She turned toward her, saw the semiautomatic pointed at her heart. "What was what?"

"That noise." Val's eyes were narrow, suspicious. "It sounded like twigs breaking."

Renee heard it then, a soft crunch from the direction of Adrian's tree. "Probably just an animal."

"Or a man," Val snapped, and Renee's heart kicked hard. "Check it out," she instructed, motioning with her gun. "And so help me God, if you try anything, you know who will pay the price."

She did. Cain—and her grandmother.

Renee turned toward the clearing and tore at a clump of moss, moved silently toward the gorgeous old oak. Adrenaline streamed frenetically, bringing a hot rush to her blood. She felt it swirl through her as she stepped from the dense undergrowth, and instinctively knew that she was not alone.

"Adrian,"
she whispered, and her throat closed on the words. The moisture came next, warm, salty, burning her eyes.

"Non."
The soft word boomed through her like a shout.
"C'est moi."
He emerged from behind the tree and stepped toward her, all tall and strong and dark, but battered somehow. Mud streaked his camouflage pants and beneath the holster strapped around his shoulders, his long-sleeved T-shirt was torn. She recognized the gun immediately, the one he'd once put into her hands and taught her to use. But it was the shadows to his face that stopped her breath, the strong set to his jaw and the glitter in his eyes.

"Cain."
Her heart pounded so hard she barely heard the agitated squawk of the birds. He'd heard. He'd understood. And despite the terrible things she'd done to him, he'd come. "You shouldn't be here," she whispered.

Like a violent wind he destroyed the distance between them and crossed to her, took her hands in his arms. "The hell I shouldn't," he said hoarsely, then stunned her by crushing his mouth to hers. The kiss was hard and possessive and completely unexpected, and in it Renee knew she could drown.

His lips moved against hers with shattering hunger, nibbling and claiming, whispering words that made her heart slam cruelly against her ribs.

"No!" she rasped, pushing against his arms and ripping away, making herself breathe. Making herself think. Val was not fifteen feet away. She could see everything. Hear everything.

If Renee couldn't get rid of Cain—

"I know I hurt you," he was saying, but his words barely registered. A cool calm came over her as she looked at him standing there, at the steady rise and fall of his shoulders and the bulk of his chest, and she knew what she had to do.

"No words," she whispered, stepping toward him and lifting her face to his, letting her hands settle against his stomach. Then as her eyes met his, she grabbed his gun and pushed away from him, curled her hands around the butt and lifted it between them. "Not another step, either."

Shock flared in his gaze. "Vannah—"

She forced a laugh. "My, my, Detective, you really have lost your touch, haven't you?"

He stood there so horribly still, staring at her with a combination of dread and horror that broke her heart.
"What the hell are you talking about?"

Around them even the birds fell silent as the shadows kept slipping and merging, squeezing out the last vestiges of bloodred light. "Sorry,
cher
, but denouements aren't my thing." With a calm she didn't come close to feeling, she curled her finger around the trigger. "But I will thank you for making this so easy."

Then she pulled the trigger.

The force of the blast knocked her backward. She staggered and grabbed a low-hanging branch, held on as she watched Cain's face contort. The primal sound that ripped from his body echoed hideously through the swamp. "Y-yo-u…" he gasped, bringing his hands to his gut. Then he doubled over and went to his knees. "You … sh-ot m-me."

Horror coiled in her throat. She crossed to him and stared down at him curled in fetal position, made herself smile. "When I was hired to impersonate Savannah and find the Goose, I thought you would be my biggest obstacle—guess I was wrong."

A strangled sound broke through the silence and Renee knew she couldn't wait one second longer. She started to run just as Val broke through the underbrush.

"Not so fast," commanded a harsh, authoritative voice, but Renee kept running. She slapped at the low-hanging vines and tore at the dense underbrush, stumbled on a Cypress knee.

The second voice, so horribly familiar, stopped her cold.

"There's no way out." Gabe watched her back stiffen, watched her twist toward him as she kept the semiautomatic trained on D'Ambrosia. He'd recognized the outfit. He'd bought it for her. He'd recognized the swingy dark hair—he'd encouraged her to try the style. But God help him, even when he saw her shadow-drenched face, denial hammered through him.

The eyes were wrong. They were hard and cold, not bright and vibrant. Merciless, not insecure. Even her mouth was different, a tight line instead of the soft fullness he'd tasted so many times.

"Gabe,"
she whispered, and the sound of his name exploded through him like a grenade. Because it was … right. He'd heard the unsure tone so many times—when he'd told her he loved her for the first time, when he'd proposed after only a month and she'd touched her fingers to his mouth and told him no, when they'd found each other again, when she'd held him after Savannah disappeared and his cousin faced a life behind bars—and just like every other time his heart surged on the unspoken need, the fierce desire to protect.

"Put down the gun," he said, and even as he felt himself step toward her, none of it felt real. It couldn't be. This was Val, and he was Gabe. They'd been together for three years. The night before she'd cried in his arms, told him how much she needed him.

Now she stood in the hazy crimson light in the middle of the swamp, with a semiautomatic trained on a cop.

You need to get out here,
Cain had instructed less than an hour before. Savannah had slipped him a silent alarm, and he'd been in the process of laying a trap
. I'm afraid we're going to need your help.

He looked at his cousin now, crumpled on the leafy carpet beneath an old oak, and felt the rage coil through him anew.

"I'm here," he said to Val, careful to keep his voice low and reassuring. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

She shook her head, sent her hair swaying. "I told you to stay away from Cain," she whispered. "I
begged
."

His eyes met D'Ambrosia's in silent understanding. Somewhere in the brush, his uncle waited.

"I know you did, honey, but we can't change what's already happened. I'm here now. That's all that matters." He stepped closer. Out of the corner of his eye saw Savannah slip between two young saplings. "I want to help you. Just put down the gun—"

"I can't," she said, and her eyes went even darker. "It's too late for that."

"It's never too late." To prove his words, he lowered his own gun and let it fall to the ground, kicked it toward the underbrush even as he saw D'Ambrosia fiercely shaking his head no. "See? All you have to do is put down your gun and let me help you."

She gestured toward D'Ambrosia. "Tell him to put his gun down."

"You know he can't do that."

"It's the only way," she said, but D'Ambrosia didn't move a muscle.

"Watch out!" Savannah shouted, but it was already too late. The gunshot ripped in from behind him and D'Ambrosia went down. Val swung around and lifted her gun, looked him dead in the eye.

"I'm sorry," she said in an emotionally devoid voice he'd never heard before, "but
this
is the only way." Curving her finger around the trigger, she pulled.