by Mallory Kane
There were no human remains found on the scene. None at all.
Dev sat in his car and pushed grimy, soot-stained hands through his hair and rubbed his burning eyes. He didn’t know Dana as well as he knew Cody, since they’d been divorced for the past four years. But he knew Cody still loved her.
Cody thought Dana was dead. Dev had been prepared to stay out there all night, if that was what it took, to make sure there was no doubt. There wasn’t. The official announcement would come tomorrow. No human remains. It wasn’t hard to make the next jump in logic.
No human remains equaled Fontenot had Dana.
Dev shuddered. What was Cody going to do when he found out?
He profoundly hoped his friend and partner would sleep until morning. The New Orleans police, the Slidell police, in fact everyone in the state had been notified that Fontenot was on the loose with a possible hostage. Maybe by morning they’d have some news.
Now Dev had to go in and face Cody. He didn’t know what he dreaded more—telling Cody that Dana hadn’t been in the explosion, or that Fontenot had taken her.
He didn’t want to hand Cody the hope that she was alive, only to jerk his foundation out from under him by telling him she was Fontenot’s captive. Dev had seen firsthand what Fontenot was capable of. He didn’t want to think about what that might mean for Dana.
He sighed heavily and got out of the car. The borrowed deputy was leaning back against the hotel door, balancing on two legs of his straight-backed chair.
Dev unceremoniously kicked the chair out from under him.
The deputy tumbled to the ground and scrambled up again immediately, looking angry until he saw who it was. Then he straightened up, jammed his hat back down on his head and said, “Evening, sir.”
“Any problems?”
“No sir.”
“Fine. Dismissed.” Dev stuck his key into the lock.
“Uh, sir?”
Dev whirled around, satisfied to see the look of abject terror on the face of the young deputy sheriff.
He had that effect on people. He liked it. “Well?”
“Uh, he got room service a little while ago. That was okay, wasn’t it?”
Dev blew out a breath between his teeth. “Did he knock you out with the water pitcher and tie you up with napkins and make his escape?”
The deputy grinned reluctantly. “No, sir.”
“Dismissed.” Dev turned back to the door, a vague uneasiness settling under his breastbone. He wouldn’t have expected Cody to rouse himself enough to want room service, unless…
“Ah, hell!” Dev let himself in, and cursed.
Just as he feared, the room reeked of bourbon. Cody sat at the little table with a glass and a bottle in front of him. The bottle was about a third empty.
Cody was a pathetic sight, with his handcuffed, bandaged hands, and his T-shirt and jeans covered in soot and mud. He had a scrape on his cheek and a dark bruise on his left jaw where Dev had coldcocked him. His face was drawn and streaked with soot and tears.
He looked like death, with the skin stretched taut across his pale cheekbones and those astounding blue eyes shining glassily. His hair was messy, like a lunatic’s, and his nose and the corners of his mouth looked pinched.
As Dev watched, Cody lifted the glass to his lips with an unsteady, bandaged hand. His other hand had to follow because of the handcuffs. As he drank, Cody’s dull gaze focused on Dev’s face.
“You goddamn ugly swamp rat,” Cody said conversationally, his words slow and just barely slurred.
“Nice to see you, too,” Dev said as Cody continued to swallow bourbon. “You drunk?”
Cody shook his head tiredly. “Unfortunately, no. Not at all.” Cody drained the glass and filled it again, his movements uncharacteristically clumsy as he tried to manipulate with the handcuffs. “Only my fingertips are numb.”
“Too bad.” Dev sat down across from his friend.
Cody looked up at Dev, his eyes like blue burning coals in his haunted face. “Yeah, it’s just too damn bad, ain’t it? I only have two thirds of a bottle left. I figure that’ll get me up to about my knuckles, then you’re going to have to go get me some more.”
“Maybe we should find another swamp rat, one that makes his own.”
“Couldn’t be any worse than this rotgut.” Cody reached for the bottle, forgetting the handcuffs. He almost knocked it over.
Dev reached out and righted the bottle with one hand, and dug the keys to the handcuffs from his pocket with the other.
“Let me get those off you.” He avoided Cody’s eyes as he unlocked the cuffs, not that it did any good. He could still feel his partner’s anguished, bewildered gaze.
He pulled the bottle toward him, but Cody grabbed it.
“You slimy swamp snake. If I could move I’d kill you. What the hell’s wrong with you? Why wouldn’t you let me save her? I could have saved her. You son of a bitch! Why?” Cody’s red-rimmed eyes brimmed over with tears.
Dev hadn’t been moved by many things in his life, but the sight of his best friend so hurt, so angry, so helpless, almost made him cry. He had to swallow a couple of times before he could talk.
“I was just trying to protect you, my man,” he said. “You’d have killed yourself in that inferno.”
“So?” Cody’s shoulders slumped and he began tracing patterns in the condensation on the table. “So what if I burned up? What the hell difference would it have made to anybody? What difference have I ever made? Not good for nothing but making Dana’s life miserable.” His face drained of what little color was left in it and he looked up at Dev.
“Dana?” His voice was tentative, hopeless.
Dev looked at his friend, wondering how to tell him. Damn, he wished Cody would pass out. The boy had been given enough morphine to choke a swamp gator, and he’d poured quite a bit of bourbon in on top of it. It would be much easier in the morning when Cody’s head was clearer and Dev’s brain was rested.
“Dev? What did you f-find? You’ve been out there, haven’t you? Do they know anything yet?” Cody took a long, shuddering breath and flexed a bandaged hand. “It’s probably too soon, isn’t it? You know, I think my knuckles are finally getting numb.”
Cody smiled, the expression looking eerie on his devastated, ravaged face. “That’s good. I’m looking forward to it moving on up my arms.” He looked down at himself, then up at Dev, and the tears in his eyes spilled down his cheeks.
“You know what, Dev? Liquor can numb some things. It can numb your brain, your fingers, maybe even your soul.”
He fisted his right hand and slammed it into his chest, again and again. “But nothing,” he said in time with his self-inflicted blows. “Nothing—ever—stops—the pain—here.”
The tears were running down his face and his eyes had turned to a dull slate gray. He hammered at his chest with his fist. “It—never—ever—stops.”
Finally he let his arms fall limp to the table and bent his head, staring at his hands. “What happened, Dev? Was it—quick? Oh, God, the bedroom went last. I saw it. She was in the bedroom, wasn’t she? She knew. She had to have heard the explosion. She knew she was going to die. I never should have left her.”
Dev put his hand over Cody’s. He grimaced, blinking rapidly, searching inside himself for the cool detachment that made him a good detective.
“Cody…” Dev started, but Cody wasn’t listening. He pulled away and buried his head in his bandaged hands.
“Cody.” Dev pulled his hands away from his face. “Listen to me.”
“Go away and let me drink myself to death.” Cody reached for the bottle, but Dev retrieved it easily.
Cody shrugged and rubbed his palm across his cheeks, smearing the dirt and soot.
“Listen to me,” Dev said again. “There are no human remains in the house.” Dev’s heart wrenched as he watched comprehension slowly dawn in his friend’s face.
“No r-remains?”
Dev shook his head. “None.”<
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Cody looked at his hands, then at Dev. He wiped his face again and squeezed his eyes shut as he pushed his tangled, sweat-damp hair back from his forehead.
Dev watched the progress of Cody’s thoughts on his expressive face. The slow understanding that Dana wasn’t dead, then the dawning realization of what that meant. But it took a lot longer for Cody’s drugged brain to reach the same conclusion Dev had.
“She’s alive.”
The choked, joyous words cut through Dev like a hot knife through butter.
“She’s alive. Oh, God, she’s alive.” The sobs shook his bowed shoulders.
But then the joy on his ravaged face turned to abject horror. “Fontenot’s got her,” he muttered. His bandaged hands curled into fists and he slammed them down on the table. “We got to go, Dev. What the hell we sitting around here for?”
Cody threw himself up out of the chair, then swayed and almost fell. Dev jumped up and caught him just in time.
“Not tonight, Code. Tonight you got to rest.”
“Hell, no,” Cody slurred, trying to wrench himself out of Dev’s grasp. But Dev held on, dismayed by how weak and clumsy his partner was.
Dev bodily threw Cody on the bed and waited, but Cody didn’t launch himself up again. Dev relaxed a bit, sitting back on his haunches next to the bed.
His partner seemed to have gone to sleep, or passed out. It didn’t matter which. Dev breathed a sigh of relief, watching his friend for a minute as the lines of pain and grief on his face smoothed out a little.
Dev had never loved a woman like that. He knew all about physical pain, but not since he was a child had he ever let anybody close enough to him to hurt him. He’d never loved a woman as much as Cody loved Dana.
The only two people Dev had cared about in a long, long time were Cody and Thibaud Johnson, his mentor. And Thibaud was dead.
Dev loved Cody. He hurt for him. He ached to make things right for his partner, but there was nothing he could do.
After making sure Cody was unconscious but breathing normally, Devereaux Gautier stood abruptly and slammed out of the motel room. He paced up and down in front of the door for a few minutes, his thoughts in turmoil, his heart heavy. Then he turned toward the stucco wall and slammed his fist again and again into it, wishing with every blow that the solid brick was Fontenot’s face.
Cody was right. It never, ever stopped hurting.
FONTENOT FINISHED splicing the wires into the household circuit at Dana Maxwell’s apartment. He took a last, scrutinizing look at the magnetic door locks he’d installed on her front and back doors. Then he flipped the switch. A dull thud told him the magnets were working properly.
Stepping over to the front door, he pulled on it, exerting as much force as he could. The door held. He pulled a small black remote control unit from his pocket. He pressed a button. The resulting thud made him smile. He turned the knob and the door opened smoothly.
Perfect. Let the police try to get past that. Of course, the magnetic locks were only a last resort. If he stayed calm and focused, Maxwell would play right into his hands, and the police wouldn’t have to be involved.
If everything went as planned, Mrs. Maxwell would be the one directly responsible for her husband’s death, and Fontenot would be out of the country before the police ever got involved.
Slipping the remote control back into his pocket, Fontenot went into the bedroom.
“Mrs. Maxwell? Mrs. Maxwell.” He touched the side of her face and she jerked.
“I do apologize for leaving you bound all night. I know it must be dreadfully uncomfortable.” He grabbed the blanket and pulled her upright, pushing her legs off the bed and leaving her in a sitting position.
Her green eyes flashed at him like lasers. He chuckled. “It is a good thing looks can’t kill. I have a feeling I would be much the worse for wear if they could.” He pulled a razor-sharp switchblade from his pocket and cut the taped blanket away.
“Don’t tense up, Mrs. Maxwell. And certainly, I hope you realize it would not be a good idea for you to challenge me physically.” He held up the knife. “As you see, this is a very well-honed blade. It could easily slip between your ribs, or slice quite a deep cut in, say, your cheek.”
Her quick, alarmed glance at the knife assured him that she understood the gravity of her situation. He held the weapon in front of her face as he pressed the mechanism that caused it to close with a snicking sound. Sliding it back into his side pocket, he reached behind him where, securely tucked into his belt, was a Glock. He brandished it in front of her face.
“And of course, just in case you decide to run…” Smiling serenely, he inspected the polished surface of the gun, then wiped an imaginary smudge off the barrel and slipped it back into his belt.
“Shall we give you a reprieve from that nasty tape?” He ripped the tape off her mouth in one swift motion, which left her gasping.
“You sick ghoul,” she hissed. “Don’t you know you can’t get away with this? The entire New Orleans Police Department will be on top of you in no time.”
“Oh, please, Mrs. Maxwell. Don’t insult my intelligence and your own. As soon as I’ve set everything up here, I shall be on my way to a nonextradition country, where I have had accommodations set up and waiting for me for a long time. Your dedicated husband interrupted my departure last time, which is why he ended up getting himself shot. I hope he has more sense than to try to sneak in reinforcements this time. He should realize that he will be jeopardizing your life as well as his own.”
“However Cody does it, he will stop you, and lock you up where you belong. And if he doesn’t do it, I will. You can’t just play with people’s lives and get away with it.”
Fontenot laughed in genuine amusement. “Why, Mrs. Maxwell, of course I can. I’ve been doing it for years.”
Chapter Fifteen
Dana stared at the madman who had kidnapped her. She had never been so frightened in her life. He was totally insane, but the tone of his voice, his movements, seemed completely rational. And he truly believed he was superior to everyone else in the world.
“You’re a madman, Fontenot, and somehow, Cody will prove it. It’s just a matter of time. They’ll get you. I only hope you get to suffer as much as you’ve made others suffer. Or more.”
Fontenot shook his head regretfully and held up the piece of tape he’d ripped off her mouth. “I would hate to have to tape your mouth again,” he said. “It appears the tape irritates your sensitive skin. But if you can’t carry on a decent conversation, I’m afraid it will be necessary.”
Looking at the duct tape, Dana noticed for the first time the burning sensation around her mouth. It felt like a layer of skin had been ripped off with the tape.
Her heart raced in apprehension as she eyed Fontenot and his strip of tape. As much as she wanted to curse and rail at him, she knew she needed to remain calm and rational, and as free of restraint as possible. She had to stop him, and she wouldn’t have a prayer if she were bound and gagged again.
“Please,” she said placatingly. “Don’t tape my mouth again. That hurt so badly. I’ll stay calm.” She did her best not to allow her distaste to show on her face.
Fontenot smiled at her. “You are a brave and clever one, aren’t you?” He chuckled. “You amuse me, Mrs. Maxwell. Now…” He grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet.
Dana swayed slightly. Inactivity and lack of water made her feel weak and light-headed. “Could I have some water, please?”
Fontenot grabbed her by her upper arms and shook her. “Do not faint on me,” he said, shaking her roughly. The pain from his fingers digging into her upper arms overrode the dizziness.
“Women!” he spat. “You can ruin anything. Now, get in here.” He guided her roughly into the living room and pushed her down on the couch.
He disappeared for an instant, then returned with a glass of tap water. “Drink this, quickly. Because I need you to perform a little chore for me.”
After drai
ning the glass, Dana rubbed her arms, where red marks were already forming.
Fontenot grabbed the portable phone and pushed it into her hands. “Please telephone your husband, Mrs. Maxwell. It is time for him to come here.”
“Go to hell,” she responded.
She saw the flash of Fontenot’s pinkie ring just before she felt it graze her cheek as he struck her.
CODY STRAIGHTENED, arching his back and stretching. He’d been crouched down for most of the morning, sorting through the burned rubble that had been the lake house.
He’d found bits and pieces of their belongings. Nothing much. Most of it had been either blown apart or burned.
Some time later he might be saddened by the loss of the place that had held so many good memories for Dana and him, but right now all he wanted was a clue. Something, anything that would tell him where Fontenot had taken Dana. He was beginning to think he wasn’t going to find it here.
His brain was still dazed from the day before and all he’d gone through. Cody had seen some dreadful things in his career as a police detective, but the fact that he’d watched others suffer didn’t lessen his awe that a human being could survive the horror he’d experienced when he’d thought Dana was dead.
Right now, just thinking about it made him weak and sick with terror and grief.
But she was alive. She was alive and he had to believe she was safe. If Fontenot was true to form, he wouldn’t do anything to her without Cody there to see it. That wasn’t Fontenot’s style. He didn’t enjoy the physical torture nearly as much as he enjoyed the emotional and mental anguish he inflicted.
Cody clenched his bandaged fists, ignoring the pain from his burns. Fontenot would suffer for what he’d done to them. If Cody had anything to say about it, Fontenot would suffer.
Cody looked around and saw Dev climbing the hill toward the house. Good. Cody was ready for some action. He couldn’t find any clues here.
“Dev! Let’s get out of here,” he shouted. Maybe if they went back to New Orleans, they could trace Fontenot’s steps, try to figure out where he might have gone.
