Cypress Nights

by Stella Cameron

  “Thank you for coming back for me this morning,” she said. “I’m sorry I did my panic thing. I never know when it’ll happen. When it does, I can’t seem to move. You ought to know about that.”

  “No big deal.” He glanced sideways, and she was looking at him. Roche nodded and said, “I’m grateful I didn’t leave your place any earlier this morning. I might have been too far away to know what had happened.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Did I hear right, that you’ll consider teaching at the new school?”

  “If there ever is one,” Bleu said.

  “There will be.”

  “Not if Kate Harper has her way.”

  “Meaning?” he said.

  “Oh, nothing. She’s understandably upset about Jim and thinks he was killed because he supported the school. She doesn’t want it built at all.”

  “She won’t have any say in that,” Roche said. “Not that I blame her for her conclusions.”

  “Her conclusions are right,” Bleu said. “It’s obvious.”

  “I can’t argue with you,” he told her. “But Cyrus isn’t going to roll over and play dead because someone’s involved in a dangerous game.”

  “That was an unfortunate choice of words,” she said.

  “You’re sniping.”

  The words left his mouth without passing his brain.

  Bleu clammed up.

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” he told her. “But you asked for it.”

  “Now who’s sniping?” Bleu said.

  They drove in silence for the next fifteen minutes. Businesses had closed for the evening on Main Street, and the lowering sun threw long shadows from tree trunks.

  At the end of Crawfish Alley, Dr. Reb Girard brought her Land Rover to a halt at a stop sight and she waved, her red hair glinting in the light. Reb practiced from the house on the alley where her father had practiced before her.

  “She’s something,” Roche said, feeling daring. “She loves medicine. If she didn’t she could stay out at Cloud’s End and host garden parties. Marc has plenty for both of them.” Marc Girard, a successful architect, had inherited a good deal of the commercial real estate in the town. Cloud’s End was the Girards’ impressive home just outside Toussaint.

  “You should understand how dedicated some people are to their professions,” Bleu said.

  He just stopped himself from slamming on the brakes. This would be easier if he had not started needing to see Bleu these days, to be with her. Arguing wasn’t something he did well, but he would find out what was going through her head.

  In the townhouse driveway, he parked far enough down for her to see how untouched the place looked. The team from Green Veil had put in some productive hours.

  Bleu cleared her throat. “Look at this,” she said. “I can’t believe it.”

  “The crew we use at Green Veil do good work. There’s always plenty to be done out there.”

  “The front door…It’s new.”

  “Thanks to me, the old one got pretty badly abused,” he said.

  “They cleaned up the garage? And my car’s been taken away?”

  “It’s totaled. The car went to the insurance adjuster. But you already know that. I don’t think the cleanup took as much as you think it did. Smoke damage often looks worse than it is.”

  If she let him know he wasn’t welcome to come in, he would argue. Wouldn’t he?

  “Thank you, Roche.”

  “You already did that bit,” he told her. “I’ll get our dinner out of the trunk. I put it there so it wouldn’t smell in the car.”

  “Roche…”

  He let her pause go on. This time he wouldn’t fill any gaps for her.

  She ran her fingers through her hair. The white blouse and tan pants she wore were simple. On her, they were classy and sexy.

  “You did tell me we had a date tonight,” he said. So he’d given up and filled in some of the silence—he was human.

  “I know.” She turned a little ring with a pearl in it around and around on her right hand.

  “Let’s go.” He sprang the trunk and got out of the car. Praying she would lighten up, and that they’d be able to relax together, he grabbed the bags and slammed the trunk.

  She was out of the car, but at least she hadn’t scurried up the steps to get away from him.

  He smiled at her.

  Bleu smiled back, quickly, and looked at the ground.

  Was it guilt? Was that it? She felt guilty for sleeping with him, having sex with him—and enjoying it? He had no doubt Bleu had loved the sex. He had also clued in to the reticence she had worked through.

  He caught up with her at the bottom of the steps to the front door. “Wait,” he said. “Look at me, Bleu.”

  She didn’t.

  Roche shifted all the bags into one arm and held her elbow, pulled her to face him.

  Her expression shook him. Tears shone along her eyelids and her mouth trembled. She stood very straight, very stiff.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “I thought—”

  “You thought I’d never find out about you?” Bleu said. “Is that what you thought?”

  Chapter 23

  At the same time

  He worked alone.

  The idea of having a partner—even if only until he didn’t need one anymore—made him edgy. If you let someone inside, they made demands. And they made mistakes.

  Justice didn’t tolerate mistakes. They were too dangerous.

  From where he stood, he could see the bayou without anyone seeing him. He was hidden by the trees. Watching traffic on the water calmed him, focused him. He liked thinking about the gators in there—and the cottonmouths. He had a particular fondness for the snakes. What would it be like to carry an instrument of agonizing destruction with you?

  The snakes had possibilities.

  He had to stop the rage at his failure that morning. Rage was better gathered in and turned outward again.

  Setting the fire had only complicated things. He should have sucked up his anger that Roche didn’t leave in time, and gone back later, or tomorrow. If the fire chief had the right resources, they’d figure out what he’d done. Then there would be a hunt, and he’d be the hunted. Not that they’d ever find out who he was.

  Killing Bleu would be the fastest way to get what he wanted. Or it would be a good start.

  The other one would have to go, too, but not until he got what he wanted from her.

  He had picked his next diversion. When the authorities needed to be confused, there was nothing like a fresh kill to do the job.

  Chapter 24

  Roche didn’t talk to her, didn’t answer the question she shouldn’t have asked, didn’t look at her.

  He opened the new front door. Heavy, carved from oak; a glass fanlight at the top reminded her of a white-crystal peacock’s tail.

  As soon as she went inside the townhouse, he followed and dropped keys into her hand. He walked to the kitchen and put the bags on a counter.

  Bleu’s breath began to catch. She couldn’t fill her lungs, her ribs ached. How could she have thought these episodes were over?

  His face was expressionless. “There are locks on the windows now,” he said and raised a blind to show her. “They slide on these tracks. Easy to operate and very safe.” He dropped more keys beside the bags. “The back door’s been replaced, too. The place in the siding where the firefighters checked inside the wall is also patched.”

  When she began to shake, Bleu couldn’t do a thing to stop her teeth from chattering or her knees from jerking.

  “You don’t have to worry about this place being tight anymore.” With his hands in the pockets of his jeans and a dark green shirt tucked loosely inside at the waist, he moved as if he were relaxed. Bleu knew a sham when she saw one.

  “You are very kind,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “I don’t want you to thank me. An alarm system’s been ordered. They’ll show up tomorrow, a
nd we’ve already made sure someone other than you will be here when it’s installed.”

  Sweat ran on her palms. She breathed through her mouth, desperate not to throw up. “The bills,” she said. “Please—”

  “We’ll discuss bills at another time. You insist you’re going to stay here, even though whoever the cops are trying to hunt down knows you live in this place. It needs to be as safe as it can be.”

  When she needed control more than she ever had, she was losing it completely. “It’s not your responsibility.”

  “I’ve made it mine. What’s been done isn’t charity—the owner wants it this way. Are you hungry?”

  Hungry? “No, thank you. Not yet.”

  “Good. Neither am I. What’s the matter with you?” He came closer. “Are you going to collapse on me? If you are, let me know and I’ll call an aid car.”

  She shook her head, shocked by his toughness.

  “Take a deep breath,” he said, never moving his eyes from her.

  Bleu did her best. Her hands turned icy.

  “Another one,” he said. “And another. Do you like the front door?”

  She clasped her hands and looked at the door. “Nice.” The next breath came more easily. “It’s really beautiful.”

  “Sit,” he said, turning a chair around at the table. When she didn’t move, he said, “Sit down now, before you fall down.”

  She did as she was told and her heart slowed.

  Roche walked behind her into the kitchen and turned the faucet on. When he returned, it was with a glass of water and ice. “This’ll help,” he said. “Hold it with both hands.”

  She drank, letting her eyes close, then rolled the cold glass across her forehead. “Sorry about that,” she said.

  “Panic attack,” he said and he wasn’t asking her a question. “If you feel it starting up again, warn me.”

  “It won’t. I’m not good company. I appreciate all you’ve done to help me, but I’d like to be alone. Tomorrow we’ll talk. Forgive me, please.”

  He pulled out another chair and sat down facing her. “Not so fast,” he said. “When was the last time that happened to you? The panic?”

  “You sound like a doctor.”

  “I am a doctor.”

  She looked at him. “You’re a psychiatrist.”

  “I went through the same training as any other doctor and there’s nothing wrong with my memory.”

  He sounded matter-of-fact, not brusque or judgmental.

  “I told you. It hasn’t happened for a long time. A couple of years, probably.”

  “Do you think it was the fire that stressed you?” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “You dealt with Jim Zachary’s death without falling apart. If anything should have made you panic, that was it.”

  She wanted to snap back that she wasn’t falling apart, but a few minutes ago she had been.

  “I’m strong,” she said. “Really I am. I had to be, so I learned how.” Her voice sounded steady enough.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It was probably because of everything that’s happened today,” she said, not believing a word of it. “Going to see Kate Harper wasn’t a good idea. She’s upset and not herself.”

  “Not herself how?”

  She still wanted to share everything with him. “She was with George Pinney, Mary’s husband, who looks after her property and Jim’s. They were laughing together and it seemed so strange, like Jim wasn’t dead and everything was normal. It even upset Cyrus. I saw it in his eyes. Probably wasn’t anything, but—” she shrugged “—I think I could make something out of absolutely nothing right now.”

  Roche steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “Our first instincts are more often right than wrong. I hope it was nothing, but I’m with you—sounds bizarre.”

  They stayed where they were, facing each other, their eyes meeting, looking speculative, shifting away. Bleu longed for the strain to break. She needed a storm, the kind that washed away everything in its wake—and in this case, cleared away her doubts about this man she wanted so very much.

  “You can let me have it now,” Roche said. “What is it that I thought you’d never find out?”

  Bleu sat on her hands and bowed her head.

  “Don’t hide your face from me,” he said. “You’re angry. You don’t owe me a thing, but I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know what I’ve done wrong.”

  She popped to her feet and stood there, looking down into his face. “I shouldn’t have said anything. There’s no reason why I should have. You’ve never done anything bad to me.”

  Very slowly, he drew in a breath. “Just tell me.” He thought he knew.

  “Is it true that you did something awful to a woman once?”

  Roche slumped. He rubbed a hand over his face. “Like what?”

  She turned to walk away, but he caught her wrist and pulled her back. “Sit down,” he said. “We can deal with this, whatever it is.”

  “Is it true that you like rough sex?”

  Roche flexed his fingers. That wasn’t the term he’d expected from her. “Why would you ask me a thing like that? After being with me?”

  Bleu sat on the edge of her chair and leaned toward him. “You were sweet. And sexy. I’ve never felt that way, excited, but…it was right.”

  “Who told you I like rough sex?”

  “Do you?”

  He couldn’t look away from her slightly parted lips. “Damn it. I’d like to know who talked to you about it.”

  “Answer me.”

  She wasn’t shrinking. Something about that pleased him. Could be, it excited him, too.

  “I’ll answer you. The night with you was incredible. I want many more nights like that. Rough sex—no, I don’t particularly like rough sex. But I could probably be described as sexually adventurous. Inventive. I get bored and like to try new things. Is that so terrible?”

  Her blanched face took on a shiny, almost transparent look. “I don’t know what it means,” she whispered.

  Anger stirred. “It means I could decide I want to make love standing on my head.” He knew he should give himself time to calm down, but he wasn’t Superman. “That wouldn’t necessarily mean you’d have to be standing on your head, but it might.”

  She blinked and sucked in the corners of her mouth.

  “What do you think about that?”

  “I don’t,” she told him.

  “Who talked to you about me?”

  “There was one time that was different, wasn’t there?” she said. “A time at Green Veil when…you were seen through the windows in front.”

  “Really? Okay, yes. It’s a good thing your spy didn’t get to see what happened upstairs in the gym before that. The lady was athletic.”

  “Don’t.” She looked as if he’d grown horns.

  “Don’t what? Don’t tell you what you want to know? You asked. Let me see. We rode exercise bikes that night. I doubt if they’d been ridden quite that way before. Then we used one of the hot mud rooms. Everything gets really slippery—and messy. But who cares about mess in the heat of the moment—so to speak?”

  He could see her hold herself stiff and force back tears. “That sounds adventurous all right,” she said with a forced little laugh.

  “What happened down in reception afterward was probably a mistake, but she decided we weren’t finished yet. If I’d been less…hot?…I wouldn’t have let that happen. Anything else you want to know?”

  Bleu coughed. “Did you rape her?”

  Iced water, doused over him from head to foot, wouldn’t have shaken him more. Roche stood up. Vaguely, he wished he hadn’t because he didn’t want to make her feel threatened, and from his vantage point he could only look way down on her.

  “If you have to ask the question, then I must have,” he told her. “How does it feel to be alone with a rapist?”

  “I don’t think you are,” Bleu said. “But I wanted you to tell me it wasn’t true.”

 
“Like a child,” he said. “Make it all right, Daddy. Tell me it’s all sugar and spice and no slugs.”

  “Don’t.” She raised her hands, curled into fists. “I didn’t handle that well, but you’re really not handling it well, either. Something happened, Roche, you’ve already admitted it.”

  “And I told you—or I’m telling you now—it was the woman’s idea. Only you couldn’t even imagine a thing like that, could you? What happened to you? Who damaged you so badly you’re terrified of sex? Your dead husband?”

  “Stop it!”

  He should, and he knew it. But for once he wasn’t holding his temper in check. He couldn’t believe she doubted him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Roche turned his back and put distance between them. His temples pounded. “Are you?” He slammed his fists down on the counter. “Do you believe I would rape a woman?”

  “No.”

  He could hardly hear her. Again he punished the counter. His hands throbbed.

  “Violence frightens me,” she said. “Please don’t be angry.”

  “Violence?” He looked over his shoulder at her and laughed. “What would you know about violence?”

  Her hands fell to her sides. “I know about it,” was all she said.

  “I didn’t rape her.”

  Not technically. Lee had wanted it. She’d come looking for him and goaded him into having sex with her. And it was sex. What they had done had nothing to do with love.

  She came looking for dangerous excitement, but she got a lot more than she planned.

  Chapter 25

  Late that evening

  Madge chafed her arms. The air-conditioning ran in Sig’s car, but that wasn’t what made her cold. The chill came from inside her body and raised goose bumps on her skin.

  Sig had been waiting at St. Cecil’s when she got back from Kate’s place. He wanted to take her out again, tonight, and looked hopeful enough to make her smile. When she’d started to say she already had plans, Cyrus told Sig that a chicken pie was no reason to give up a night out and she had felt obligated to go with him.