Midnight Caller (28 page)

“More of an unwitting accomplice,” Trevor tried to explain. “But he can give us a description, maybe more. At the least, we should be able to find out if Armand Baptiste and Dante are the same person.”

McGrath peered at him. “You don't want in on this?”

“I'll be watching through the two-way, but I need to keep my distance.”

“Who's the jerkoff?”

Trevor took a measured breath and let it back out. “My father.”

McGrath's eyes bugged before he resumed his cop's heard-it-all demeanor.

“He'll let you know up front he was previously on the job, which is why I want you to question him before I hand him over to the Bureau. He equates the FBI with me and he'll shut down on them. I don't have time for his garbage.”

McGrath nodded. “We'll get on it.”

A full minute after the detective had left, Trevor still stood at the sink. He studied the bloodstain on the tiled floor where Alex had been lying and realized just how much could have gone wrong with Dante's plan. It was a combination of blind luck and daring that had worked in his favor, enabling him to pull off the abduction in the short space of time Rain had been left without protection. It also wasn't lost on him that Dante had used James Rivette as a pawn in his twisted game. That fact alone pointed back to Baptiste, since he'd already taken pleasure in revealing to Trevor that he knew about his family history.

One thing was certain—whoever Dante was, he had what he wanted now.

Reaching into his pocket, Trevor withdrew Rain's necklace. He stared at the lavender stone and realized he should turn it in to evidence, but at this point it didn't seem to matter. What did matter was how the killer had managed to obtain it. She hadn't been wearing the necklace last night or this morning, which meant it had been taken previously. He thought of Rain's patient, Oliver Carteris. The kid had a history of petty theft and until recently, a revolving door to her house. Rain had been trying to reach him by phone on the drive to Annabelle's that morning. Was there a connection?

Brian's voice broke into Trevor's thoughts. He was outside on the porch, arguing with the police.

“Let him in,” he called, feeling a headache pulse behind his eyes. Alex. The only other person who'd seen Dante was unconscious and on his way to the E.R. in an ambulance.

Self-rebuke made it hard for him to breathe. How long did Rain have? Trevor closed his hand around the amethyst pendant, feeling its hard shape against his palm. He should have kept Rain with him. He shouldn't have left her alone, not for a minute.

Brian entered. His face paled when he saw the blood on the floor. Trevor didn't pull any punches.

“Alex is alive, but he's hurt. They've taken him to All Saints. You need to get over there.”

“Rain?” Brian managed to ask.

Trevor shook his head.

T
hey'd been traveling for over two hours. The Cadillac Escalade had gone through Morgan City a while earlier, then headed west into the quaint town of Jeanerette. From there, they'd driven past fields of young sugarcane before the pastoral setting eventually faded into verdant, isolated marshlands. As the SUV roared over a rusted, two-lane bridge, Rain stared into a sluggish inlet framed by gnarled cypress trees. She had been gagged until a short while ago, when Christian Carteris announced that they should talk. Her lips still stung from the duct tape he'd ripped from her mouth.

“Where are we going?” she asked not for the first time.

“I told you—patience, my dear,” he advised from the driver's seat. “Why not enjoy the scenery? We'll be there soon enough.”

A peeling billboard loomed next to the rural highway, advertising Saturday-night cockfighting and cold beer at a local venue. Rain tried again to loosen the tape binding her wrists and wondered if Alex was still alive. Carteris had given her a choice—go with him, or watch him slit Alex's throat as he lay unconscious on the floor of Annabelle's kitchen. Her gaze shifted warily to the knife that now rested on the leather armrest between them.

The SUV hurtled past a decaying building choked by kudzu vines. A stoop-shouldered gas pump stood out front, and a rusted metal sign under the roofline read LeBlanc's Gas and Bait. Its windows were broken and the screened front door yawned open. The business looked as though it hadn't been operational for years.

“You're a surgeon,” Rain choked out, fighting her fear. “You're supposed to save lives.”

“I have.” Carteris looked at her through fashionable sunglasses. “The lives I've saved far exceed the ones I've taken.”

“And that gives you the right?”

He didn't respond. Instead, he asked pleasantly, “Would you care for a bottled water? I've packed refreshments in the cooler in the backseat.”

“I don't want any water.”

“Suit yourself. You don't want to get dehydrated.” He consulted the Rolex on his wrist as if he had an appointment to keep, and Rain's attention was again drawn to the ring on his hand. The serpent's fangs were bared and sharp. She knew what it was—a bloodletting ring. Tears burned behind her eyelids, but she wouldn't allow herself to cry. She had to stay calm. Rain stared out the windshield as up ahead an alligator slithered across the asphalt before disappearing into the foliage on the side of the road.

“Why do you kill?” she asked finally, finding the silence more unnerving than conversation. “If it's blood you need—”

“Then why don't I just get it at the office?” Carteris chuckled. “Really, do you want me to
steal
from the hospital's blood supply?”

She shook her head weakly, failing to understand his sense of humor. “What does any of this have to do with me? Or my mother?”

“I don't expect you to understand yet, but you will soon.”

The air conditioner's cold blast caused gooseflesh to rise on her bare arms and legs. She still wore running shorts, a tank top and sneakers.

“I watched you leave your house with Agent Rivette this morning, heading out for a jog,” Carteris informed her. “Are you in love with him?”

“No.”

“You're lying.” He slowed the SUV, taking a left off the highway. “I'd really rather think you're in love with him than just fucking him like a common slut.”

The road they'd turned onto was little more than a gravel path. It ran alongside a stagnant pool filled with green algae and islands of water lilies. A trio of egrets fished in the shallow water, but the birds took flight when the SUV approached. As they drove deeper into the wooded bayou, the trees with their hanging garlands of Spanish moss nearly concealed the blue sky. The ground was pitted and rough, and the vehicle bounced over the terrain.

“What about Oliver? Is he part of this?”

“Oliver doesn't have the stomach for it.” Carteris's words dripped with disapproval. “But he's been helpful to me, to a certain extent.”

“He brings you the girls.” Rain felt sick with realization. It was Oliver who'd been seen with Rebecca Belknap at the Ascension that night.

“He's been watching you at my instruction. All this time, you thought he was there for counseling.” No longer needing his sunglasses, he tossed them onto the dashboard. Rain saw the bruise shadowing his right eye.

“A gift from my son,” he said, noting her gaze. He fished steel-framed spectacles from his shirt pocket and put them
on. “Oliver's grown quite fond of you. He could never accept that you were the endgame.”

Rain recalled the afternoon in the restaurant when Carteris had invited himself to sit at her table. He'd seemed so concerned about Oliver, even admitting to being intimidated by him.
I was actually a bit fearful of him. My own son.

All of it had been a lie.

Last night when Oliver called her home, had he been planning to warn her? She wondered what hold Carteris had over him that compelled him to follow his orders. Was it out of fear or some kind of twisted loyalty? Why had Oliver failed to confide in her? Sitting in weary silence, Rain tried not to think about her body being left behind for wild animals to scavenge once Carteris finished with her.

“Did you know I'm an avid sportsman?” His inquiry was as casual as if they were out for an afternoon drive. “I have a cabin I use during hunting season. I think you'll find it rather charming in its simplicity.”

They continued bumping along the gravel road for several more minutes, until the trees and shrubs finally began to thin. The SUV emerged into a clearing. What Rain saw stole her breath. The burned-out frame of an antebellum plantation home stood in front of them like a massive gray specter. As was the custom with bayou houses, it had been raised on stone piers to lift it above the floodwaters. But only its chimneys and the sun-faded columns of its wraparound veranda remained intact. The rest had descended into rubble.

“This land was formerly a rice plantation. It's been in my mother's family for generations,” Carteris recounted. “Local folklore claims the house was burned years ago by towns-people in one of the nearby parishes. They believed voodoo was being practiced here. Can you imagine?”

The SUV rolled to a stop in front of an overseer's cabin set a few hundred feet back from the remains of the larger
house. Although the domicile was likely as old as the ruined manor, it appeared to have benefited from a recent renovation. Its sloping tin roof looked new, and its front porch was built with fresh cypress timbers. Carteris took the knife from the armrest.

“When I returned to the States, I considered rebuilding and residing out here, but I realized I'd miss city life. I'm hardly what one would call a country-gentleman doctor.” He smiled at her. “But that doesn't mean I don't require an occasional peaceful getaway.”

Carteris climbed from the SUV. After removing a black physician's bag from the backseat, he went around to open Rain's door. She tensed as he reached across her lap to release the seat belt.

“I wanted to share this place with you. It will give us time to be alone.” He helped her from the leather seat. As she stepped to the ground, her knees nearly buckled and he caught her against his chest. “Steady now.”

The midafternoon sun beat hotly against her skin, which was still clammy from the continual moist jolt of the SUV's air conditioner. She wondered vaguely if she might be in shock.

“Why now?” Rain asked timorously. “You could've taken me at any time—”

“Are you aware of tomorrow's date?”

“It's May twenty-ninth.”

“And that holds no significance for you?”

When she didn't reply, Carteris looked disappointed. “It's the thirtieth anniversary of your mother's death. I thought you'd have known that.”

With his hand at the small of her back, he propelled her up the slatted stairs to the cabin's porch. The tin roof jutted over the wood-planked flooring. It provided some relief from the sun, but the air was still heated and thick with humidity.
Rain felt as if her lungs were filling with water with each shallow breath. A papery mass the size of a basketball hung under the roof's eaves, and a horde of black wasps hummed around it.

Carteris frowned as he regarded the nest. “That will have to go.”

He used a key to unlock the cabin's front door and prodded her to enter in front of him. Stale, hot air met her face.

“The place runs on a generator, but I'll have to start it.” He left the door open behind them to allow a little fresh air inside. With a wave of his hand, he indicated a window-box air-conditioning unit. “It might take a few hours to cool off. We also have plumbing and a propane stove. A rustic situation, but I think we'll do just fine.”

As her eyes adjusted to the darkened interior, Rain looked at her surroundings. There was a plaid couch with a coffee table and a rough-hewn bookcase. A metal gun safe stood in the corner next to a stacked-stone fireplace. Surprisingly, the cabin's interior appeared…normal.

But she nearly stopped breathing as Carteris came up behind her, standing so close she could feel his warm breath. Sweat trickled down her nape. He released the elastic band that held her hair, causing it to graze her shoulders. Gently, his fingers combed through the strands. Rain bit her lip to keep from crying out.

“That's much better.” His mouth next to her ear, he added, “There's something on the bookcase you might want to see.”

Rain moved toward the shelving on rubbery legs, grateful for any reason to put some distance between them. There were several framed photos at eye level, and she stepped closer, feeling her stomach plunge. The image in the center was of a young Desiree, wearing flare-legged jeans and a midriff-bar
ing top. A man stood next to her mother. But it wasn't Gavin Firth. The man in the photograph was Christian Carteris.

“Your mother was my first and only love,” he explained. “I was a few years older than her and finishing my undergraduate degree when we met. She broke my heart when she chose your father over me.”

Rain turned to him.
It couldn't be.
If her mother was still alive, she'd be fifty-eight years old. She looked at Carteris's unlined face and the toned build of his body. He couldn't be more than forty-two or forty-three.

“That's not possible,” Rain argued. “Even with plastic surgery—”

“Blood is the elixir of life.” He took a step closer, and her eyes darted to the knife he held in his hand. “You asked why I don't steal from the hospital's blood supply. The blood has to be
fresh,
Rain. It must be ingested by one life force directly from another.”

She swallowed a scream as he reached for her bound hands. Rain recoiled as he sliced through the duct tape, causing the sharp blade to nick the inside of her right wrist. A thin line of red blood instantly appeared.

“I only meant to release you,” he offered apologetically. Peeling away the tape, Carteris looked at the cut. Then he lifted it to his mouth and licked away the small amount of blood. She stood mesmerized, her pulse beating wildly.

“Age is of no relevance to me. Do you understand now, Rain?”

The room tilted as she fought to keep her bearings. Carteris steadied her with his hands around her waist.
This wasn't real.
Rain didn't care what she'd seen in the photo. She had to keep him talking, she realized, delay him from whatever his plans were for her.

“Why do you call yourself Dante?” she asked in a voice made too high by encroaching panic. She placed her hand on
his chest and tried to increase the slight space between their bodies.

“You're familiar with Dante Alighieri? The Italian poet who wrote the
Divine Comedy?
”

Rain worked to recall the epic poem, which described Dante's journey through hell, purgatory and paradise.
“Dante's Inferno?”

He smoothed her hair, his eyes on her mouth. “Desiree was my Beatrice. She was to have been my companion through the journey of life. But none of that really matters now, does it?”

She felt the tremors racking her body grow stronger. To her relief, Carteris dropped his hands from her and walked to the pass-through counter separating the utilitarian kitchen from the main room. He began rummaging through the leather bag he'd brought inside. Rain estimated the distance to the cabin's open door. She prepared to run and take her chances that she was faster than him, but her hope died as Carteris turned toward her again. He held a hypodermic needle.

She skittered backward as he advanced, but the bookcase stopped her retreat. “Please, don't!”

“You're exhausted,” he pointed out, closing in on her. “I only want to help you sleep. Things will look better once you're rested.”

“Don't stick me with that!”

“Relax.” He gave her his best bedside expression. “I'm a doctor, remember?”

Rain tried to wring free of his grasp, but he was far stronger. She screamed and scratched at his wrists, sobbing as the needle pricked her skin. Carteris hushed her, imprisoning her against his chest as he pumped the syringe's contents into her. He held her until her head bobbed and her body began to sag.

“Trevor,” Rain heard herself whisper.

She felt his lips against the top of her head. “All in due time.”

Her struggling became increasingly weak and uncoordinated. Whatever he'd shot her with was taking rapid effect. He picked her up in his arms.

“I have a room ready for you, little one.”

Carteris carried her to the back of the sweltering cabin. The room was windowless and shadowy, and its feminine furnishings looked out of place. But the bed's ironwork headboard seemed strangely familiar to her, as did the antique vanity table with its skirted apron and oval mirror. She recognized the nubbed chenille coverlet, too.