"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.
"Nothing like a couple days where if s quiet and nobody around to bother me, you know?" Something rustled and Terri sighed. "Now I've got to get up in three hours and go he to our boss and your brother. You be careful and call me tomorrow."
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?"
"No." Caine stepped into the boat. "We're going to go and find her." Before Billy does.
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 b
owed 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."
Laure's jaw sagged. "Was she the girl who made him decide not to go to law school?"
"She did, but that wasn't the worst of it. She broke his heart. After she left, for a time Louie and I thought J. D. might try to harm himself." Remembering those long, terrible weeks made Elizabet rise and go to open the curtains. "He was never the same after her. He never trusted another girl again."
"How did he get involved with her?"
"Oh, you know how some of these poor girls get into college on scholarships. I think they only do it so they can trap some boy into marriage." She curled her fingers into the velvet edge of the curtain. "I warned J. D. about her, but he thought he was in love and of course he wouldn't listen to me. For six months, I lived in terror that he would get her pregnant." She pulled aside the ivory tapestry drapes, and closed her eyes as the sun touched her face.
"She didn't try to trap him into marriage, did she?"
"Not at first." Elizabet turned around to face her friend. "She's not a stupid girl, you know. She worked her way into his life gradually, taking up more and more of his time, luring him away from his studies. Then she began poisoning him against his friends— the same boys he had known since grade school." Elizabet straightened one of the curtain hems before returning to sit beside Laure. "I knew when she nearly convinced him to quit the football team that she was serious trouble. You know how much J. D. loved playing."
Laure set aside her cup and leaned forward. "Did you speak with her?"
"No. I felt like I held my breath for about six months, though. When I heard she'd thrown mud at some of J. D.'s friends on the way to a dance, I wasn't even surprised." She refilled her tea, then added a drop to Laure's barely touched cup. "Although to this day, I don't know what set her off."
"You remember the way we were at school?" Laure sounded vaguely sad. "All those poor girls we snubbed? I never was real comfortable with that."
"You've always been too softhearted for your own good," Elizabet chided. "I know for a fact that J. D.'s friends were kind to her, for his sake. They were all such nice kids." She smiled a little, remembering. "Pity she couldn't be the same."
"Maybe they were jealous of her," a male voice said.
Elizabet's head snapped up, and she saw her husband standing just inside the doorway. "Louie, you startled me. What in heaven's name are you talking about?"
"Isabel, and the way she was. She wasn't a schemer. She was sweet, and smart, and a hard worker." Eliza-bet's husband folded his arms. "I couldn't say the same about J. D.'s other friends."
Laure set down her cup and stood. "Perhaps I should go."
"I will be happy to take you home, chèrie." Louie gestured toward the front of the house. "Would you give me a moment alone with my wife first?"
"Of course." Laure kissed Elizabet's cheek, squeezed her hand, then departed.
"What are you doing, Elizabet?"
"I'm caring for my friend." She wasn't intimidated by her husband's visible displeasure. "I'm also letting her know who she's dealing with. Have you forgotten what that girl did to our son?"
"I remember it a little differently. So should you."
She set aside her cup. "Sometimes the memory becomes unreliable over time."
"So now I'm an old man."
"No, you're not. That would make me an old woman." She went to hug him, but he drew back. It didn't worry her. Louie never stayed angry for more than an hour or two before he reverted back to his charming, irreverent self. "You shouldn't worry about Isabel Duchesne. I expect she'll land on her feet. Her kind have a knack for doing that."
"I have adored you since the moment I first laid eyes on you," he said, his voice snapping out the words. "But I have never been as disappointed in you as I am now."
That hurt, but she kept her expression smooth. "You'll get over it, Louis, like you always do."
Elizabet didn't flinch when he slammed the door on his way out. She already had a lengthy mental tally of Isabel Duchesne's sins against her family, and this was simply one more item to add to the list.
Chapter Eight
"Get up, boy."
J. D. opened his eyes to find himself alone in the Martins' spare bed, the business end of a double-barreled shotgun wavering an inch from his nose. He remained still and gazed along the barrel until he met the angry gaze staring down at him from a heavily scarred face.
The man was short and lean, with patchy white hair and more burn scars than J. D. had ever seen on a living human being. He looked like hell had chewed him up and spit out the gristle.
"Who are you?" J. D. looked around, but Sable was nowhere in sight. His gun was tucked under the side of the mattress, but he didn't want to move until he could distract the old man.
His attacker sneered, emphasizing his grotesque disfigurement. "I am the devil—what do you think, boy?" he asked, his voice a croaking rasp. "Am I not pretty?"
"Pretty, uh, no." Christ, he was going to be shot in the face by a lunatic, and where was Sable? "Bu
t you look hard to kill."
"I am." The old man jerked the shotgun up a notch. "Get up, now."
Sable came around him, carrying a stack of neatly folded clothes. She was wearing a calico shirt and a pair of baggy jeans, and had braided her hair back away from her face. Instead of being afraid, she gave the scarred man an exasperated look, as if what he was doing was only a minor annoyance. "What are you doing?"
J. D. used the distraction to slide his hand over the side of the mattress and extract his weapon.
"What I should have done ten years ago," Remy told her. When he turned back, his eyes widened.
J. D. kept the gun trained on the old man. "I'm a little hard to kill, too, old man. Sable, go on out of here."
"Déposez le fusil de chasse—put down the shotgun, Papa." She came to stand next to J. D. and gave him the same annoyed frown. "And I would appreciate it if you wouldn't shoot my father."
J. D.'s mouth curled. "Soon as he puts down the shotgun."
She turned to the man. "Papa?"
"This is how he protects you? I could blow his head off while he slept." Remy made a sound of disgust, but slowly lowered the weapon. "City boys." He rubbed his chest.
J. D. lowered his gun and sat up, scrubbing a tired hand over his scalp. "You can shoot me after I've had a cup of coffee."
"These are clean. Colette washed them." Sable left the stack of his clothes on the end of the bed, then went to her father and tugged on his arm. "Come on, Papa, let J. D. dress. We can talk downstairs after you take your pills."
"I hate pills," the old man grumbled, but went along with her.
J. D. dressed and left a few twenties under the lamp by the old bed, where Colette would find them later, then went downstairs to find Old Martin and Remy arguing in French. The battered table was almost groaning under the weight of a huge country breakfast. Remy's shotgun stood leaning against the wall by the table. Sable was standing beside Colette at the stove, holding a plate the old woman was stacking with pancakes. They were conversing in French, too rapidly for him to follow, but it was something about someone named Billy.
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