"You should go, too, my dear." Laure looked worried. "I know Elizabet is sorry for what happened."
Moriah suspected that Elizabet Gamble would never speak to her again. "It's better that I skip it, now that I no longer have a date."
The older woman looked sympathetic. "Forgive me. I hadn't considered how you must feel about Jean-Delano."
Moriah hadn't been in love with J. D., so her heart would survive, and so would her wounded pride. "I'd much rather be here with you. So what would you like to do this evening? Watch a video? Listen to some music?"
"I think I'll do a little reading." Laure went to the magazine rack and picked out a copy of Vogue. "Have you seen the latest fashions for spring?"
Moriah heard the sound of glass shattering at the front of the house. "Is your housekeeper still here?"
"No." Laure rose, alarmed. "I sent everyone home after dinner."
Moriah's heart pounded as she hurried over to the double doors to close and lock them. "Call 911—tell them someone's breaking into the house."
The older woman was already at the desk, holding the receiver to her ear. Slowly she replaced it. "The line is completely dead."
Moriah looked around for anything she could use as a weapon. "Did Marc keep a gun anywhere?"
"No, he hated them." Laure went to the windows, looked out, and uttered a cry. "All of the security people are gone, too. I didn't think I'd need them at night."
Heavy footsteps coming toward the library made Moriah pick up a slender porcelain statue. "Is this priceless?"
"No."
She positioned herself by one side of the door, and flinched as someone kicked it from the other side. "Hide under the desk. Hurry."
Before Laure could move, a second kick drove the door in, and a big, black-haired man came in. Moriah swung the statue at his head only to find it wrenched out of her grip by one of the man's fast, huge hands.
He held on to the statue and yanked someone behind him into the room. "That's no way to say hello, chère."
Moriah met Sable Duchesne's shocked brown eyes, and then looked down at the cords binding her wrists. Fear made her move around him, and put herself between him and Laure.
"Who are you?" Moriah tried to sound tough, but he was huge and easily the scariest-looking man she'd ever seen in her life. "What do you want?"
He ran his black gaze over her, then Laure. "You don't want to give me trouble, Goldilocks."
"Moriah." The older woman's voice strangled on her name.
Moriah moved back until she could put her arms around the older woman. "You have no business here. Get out!"
"Caine, please," Sable said. "It's not too late—you can leave right now before anything else happens."
"I do have business here, chère." He took a knife from his belt and turned it, letting the light dance over the deadly silver edge.
Moriah couldn't take her eyes off the blade, even when he used it to slash a length of velvet cord from one of the drape tiebacks. She pushed Laure behind her as he approached them, and held out her fists. "I won't let you touch her."
"I don't want her. I want you." He held the knife tip to her throat.
His eyes were so black that she couldn't see the pupils. "I will fight you," she whispered.
"Would you?" He stared at her trembling lips for a moment. "Hold out your arms."
She glanced down at the knife and then lifted her arms. Quickly he looped the cord around them, putting the knife away only once her wrists were bound like Sable's. He left enough cord to pull her toward him with it. "Let's go."
"My parents are rich; they'll pay you whatever you want," Moriah told him. "So you only need me. Let Sable and Laure go."
He paused and smiled at her. "You got some spine on you, girl." He jerked on the cord, yanking her toward the door. "Ms. LeClare, my men are all around this house, so don't you go anywhere. Isabel." He jerked his head toward the ceiling. "Upstairs."
Caine tied the two younger women together and locked them in one of the second-floor bedrooms. He had lied to Laure about having the house surrounded—his men had no idea where he was—but she was still waiting in the library for him when he returned.
"Who are you?" Though she looked ashen, she presented a calm and dignified demeanor, as if he were just a troublesome door-to-door salesman. "What do you want?"
"I want the truth, lady." The fragility of her bones made him careful with his grip on her arm. "Show me where your husband's personal papers are."
She led him out of the library, down the hall, and into a large and beautifully furnished study. "Perhaps if you tell me specifically what you're looking for, I can find it for you."
He released her. "Bank records and personal correspondence."
She went to the desk and opened a drawer. "Marc kept his business accounts at his office." She removed a large clasped envelope. "These are the statements from the last six months."
Caine locked the door to the study and pushed a chair against the knob for good measure. "Open it."
Laure removed the financial statements and set them out on the desk.
"Sit down over there." Caine waited until she lowered herself onto an armchair in front of the desk; then he turned on the lamp and sat down in LeClare's comfortable executive leather chair.
He kept his expression blank, but inside he was still reeling from finding blood splattered all over the inside of Billy's trailer. Either Billy was dead, or he'd killed Cecilia—or maybe both of them were dead. There had been a lot of blood.
Maybe the wife knows who else was involved. "You saw your husband the day he was murdered, didn't you?"
She lifted her chin. "I'm not going to discuss my husband with you."
"Yes, you are." He began skimming through the documents. "Twenty-nine years ago he paid my father ten thousand dollars to burn down a house. I imagine he had to pay Billy fifty thousand or better to burn his marina and his processing plant. Was there someone else on his payroll?"
She sniffed. "Why in heaven's name would my husband burn his own properties?"
"To blame Cajun fishermen like me for doing it, and get more goddamn laws made against us. Maybe he wanted the insurance money, too." He flipped through to the end of the statements. "I don't see it. Where's the rest of the year?"
"The other records for last year are at our accountant's office. He's preparing our tax return." She half rose from the chair when he jerked open a drawer and began tearing through it. "I'm sorry you're angry, but this will solve nothing. My husband is dead."
"I'm going to prove what he did, and find who he paid to kill Billy Tibbideau." He looked across the desk at her. "And you're going to help me. Come over here."
Moriah listened. "He must have gone back downstairs. I don't hear anything."
"We've got to get loose." Sable tugged experimentally on the short length of cord binding them. They were both sitting side by side on the floor next to the wall, where Caine had left them tied together by their wrists and ankles. "If you can reach over with me, I think I can untie the one on our legs."
"Okay." The blond girl stretched over with her, and remained still as Sable plucked at the knot. "How did you get involved with that man?"
"He kidnapped me." Sable bit her lip as the stubborn knot eluded her numb fingers. "He hasn't done anything but drag me around the city. I don't think he'll hurt Mrs. LeClare."
"If he does, I'll kill him."
"I'll help you." Finally the knot loosened and she groaned. "Almost there, just another minute." She worked her foot until she was able to tug free of the cord. "Can you stand up?"
"Uh-huh." Moriah tucked her feet under her and braced her back against the wall as she rose. "What'll we do about our hands?"
Sable looked around the room and saw a hand mirror on the dresser. "Over here." She led the younger girl to the dresser and picked up the mirror. It was a beautiful antique, with a heavily ornate, solid silver back. "Seven years' bad luck, you know."
"Do it." Mori
ah turned her head away as Sable smashed the mirror, then examined the pieces. "That one looks long enough."
Sable gingerly picked up the mirror shard and carefully inserted one jagged end between their wrists. "Hold still. I don't want to cut you." Carefully she began working it against the cord.
Moriah watched with a frown. "I can't believe you're helping me, after what we did to you."
Sable stopped cutting. "What did you do?"
"You don't remember me? I was a member of the sorority at Tulane," the blond girl said. "I was there that night, outside the dorm."
"I thought your voice sounded familiar." Sable studied her face for a moment. "I remember. You were the one who told them to stop and leave me alone."
"For what good it did." Moriah hunched her shoulders. "I've been carrying around the memory of that night for a long time. If I could take back what we did—"
"What they did. You didn't do anything." Sable went back to cutting, then stopped and put down the mirror shard. "Try pulling away from me now."
They strained and twisted, and the cord suddenly broke, freeing their wrists. From there it was just a matter of unpicking each other's knots, which they finished a minute later.
Moriah rubbed her wrists. "We should split up. Do you think you can get past his men outside and get to one of the neighbors' houses?"
"I think he was lying about the men. Wait." Sable sniffed the air. "Do you smell that?"
The other girl breathed in deeply, and her eyes widened. "Dear God, it can't be."
Sable went to the locked door and looked down to see white curls of smoke seeping through the small gap at the bottom. She touched the doorknob and found it cool. "We have to get out of here."
"Watch out." Moriah picked up a heavy floor lamp and used it like a battering ram on the door. Sable grabbed the elongated lamp base from the other side and helped her shove it against the door.
When they broke the lock and the door swung out, clouds of smoke billowed into the room. Pulling up her T-shirt to cover her mouth and nose, Sable moved out into the hall and looked over the landing rail.
Beneath their feet, the LeClare mansion was on fire.
J. D. met Terri outside the station when she got off work. "You look like you've been rode hard and put away wet."
"You have no idea." She rolled her shoulders. "Any word on Gantry or Sable?"
"No, nothing. You have any luck with the records?"
"Marc LeClare kept his books spotless." She walked with him to the parking lot. "He had to, with the campaign contribution auditors looking over his shoulder and so forth. I don't really think I'm going to find anything."
"I don't think you will, either."
She stopped and threw out her arms. "Now you tell me?"
"I talked to Marc's attorney this afternoon. Jacob said that Marc had called him the night before he died, to make an appointment to change his will." J. D. stopped beside her car. "Up until then, Laure LeClare was the sole beneficiary. You want to know how much his estate is worth?"
"More zeros than I can count, I imagine. We should talk to her." Terri made a face. "I mean, I should go and type, you should go file for unemployment, and Garcia should talk to her."
"I'm still a friend of the family." J. D. eyed her. "You wanted vacation time, right?"
"Yeah." His partner sighed and pulled open her door. "I hate breaking in new partners anyway."
On the way to the LeClare mansion, she pulled out her pack of cigarettes. "J. D., just remember, she's an important lady. You can't just accuse someone like her of bumping off her husband without hard evidence."
"She could have paid someone to do it for her." He took Terri's lighter and lit the cigarette for her. "Figure it this way: Laure and Marc are engaged; then Marc falls in love with Ginny, gets her pregnant, breaks up with Laure. Ginny disappears, comes back with a kid. She must have tried to contact him, and Laure got wind of it. So she hires someone to kill Ginny and the baby. Marc thinks they're dead, she consoles him, and they get married."
Terri took a deep drag and sighed out the smoke. "Okay, I buy that. So Sable's mom dies, and she finds out Marc's her father, and meets him. Marc is overjoyed; Laure isn't. I don't know, J. D. She came across to me and Cort like she would have welcomed Sable with open arms."
"After all those miscarriages she had, Laure finds out that Ginny gave him the one thing she couldn't— a child. How would you feel in her place?"
Terri thought for a minute. "Pretty pissed."
He nodded. "So then Laure finds out Marc plans to publicly acknowledge his illegitimate daughter. Which will wreck his campaign and ruin her public standing and dignity. They argue. Maybe he tells her he's going to change his will, too, leave half of everything to Sable—a poor Cajun girl with no background and no breeding." His phone rang, and he answered it.
"You'd better get over to the Garden District," Cort said without preamble. "We've got in a call at the LeClare mansion. Someone reported seeing Caine Gantry and Isabel going in just before the fire broke out. My trucks are rolling now."
J. D. checked their location. "We're two blocks away." He switched off the phone. "Laure LeClare's house is on fire and Sable and Caine are still inside." He looked and saw the faint outline of black smoke billowing up ahead.
"Shit." Terri slammed her foot down on the accelerator.
The fire at the old mansion was burning out of control by the time they reached the property, flames lighting up the night sky. J. D. parked as close as he dared and jumped out of the car. He and Terri ran to the first neighbor they saw.
"Did everyone get out?" he shouted over the noise of the approaching sirens.
The frightened woman shook her head. "No one's come out at all."
The house was burning too fast, J. D. realized. By the time the fire crews arrived with the trucks it would be completely engulfed in flames.
As he and Terri ran up the drive, she pointed to a set of French doors on one side leading into a small garden. "We could break those in, use the garden hose."
As she unwound the coil of green hose from the wall clip, J. D. peered inside. The interior was too smoky for him to see much, but he thought he could make out two figures struggling with something. "Spray me down," he told Terri.
She gave the house a wild look. "J. D.—"
"She's in there—do it."
Terri turned on the hose and sprayed him from head to toe. When he was wringing-wet, he picked up a large decorative stone and smashed one of the glass panes of the doors, then reached inside to unlock them.
He crouched over as he hurried into the smoke-filled room, which was like walking into hell. "Sable!"
Someone nearby coughed and cried out, "Here!"
He followed the sound and found Sable and Moriah on their hands and knees, struggling to drag an unconscious Caine Gantry between them.
"We can't find Mrs. LeClare," Sable choked out as he grabbed the big man and slung him over his shoulder.
"Hold on to my jacket." Shifting Caine's deadweight, he led the two women back toward the French doors. Cort, dressed in protective gear, met them halfway.
Moriah stopped and tried to go back. "I can't leave Laure!"
"We'll get her out—come on." Cort grabbed the women by the waist and hustled them out through the doors.
J. D. followed his brother out into the garden and away from the house. He put Gantry down on the lawn and turned to Sable, who was coughing and covered in soot but evidently not burned. "Where was Laure?"
"In Marc's study." Moriah pointed one reddened hand at the other end of the house, the one that was burning rapidly. Then she fell to her knees, and Terri helped her lie down on the grass.
"We found Caine in the hallway," Sable added when she could take a breath, "but the fire was too hot, and part of the ceiling fell in. We just couldn't get to her."
Cort and J. D. ran back to the house and looked in the windows of the study. The room was ablaze, and they heard the sound of wood giving way.
"Watch out!" Cort lunged at him and barely knocked him out of the way as the upper floors suddenly collapsed. A wall of burning wood fell on top of where they had just been standing.
J. D. looked at the mountain of flaming rubble that had been Marc LeClare's study, and closed his eyes.
At the hospital, Sable stayed with Moriah until she was taken from emergency up to the inpatient ward.
"I'll come to see you in the morning," she told her as she touched her arm. "You rest now, okay?"
Moriah nodded and drifted off as the pain medication they'd given her took effect.
Sable walked out to see J. D. talking to a heavyset, frowning man in a rumpled suit.
"Gantry is in a coma in ICU. He's got second-degree burns and a head wound," J. D. was telling the man. "I'd leave a guard on him anyway." He looked around at Sable. "Excuse me, Captain."
"Hold on, Gamble." The man held out a gun and a badge. "They're yours, if you want them back."
J. D. smiled. "You sure you want me back?"
"No." The captain slapped his arm. "But somebody's got to keep you out of trouble."
Terri and Cort were arguing in low, furious voices about something in the lobby, but abruptly stopped when Sable and J. D. approached them.
"How is Moriah?" Cort asked.
"They're keeping her, but the doctor said she should make a full recovery," Sable told him.
"We're out of here." J. D. looked at his partner. "Can I borrow your wheels?"
"Sure." She gave Cort a sideways glance. "I'm sure your brother will be overjoyed to give me a ride." She handed J. D. her keys.
He was silent as they left the hospital and he negotiated his way through the reveling Mardi Gras crowds. He kept Sable close to him, holding her in the curve of his arm. She rested her cheek against his shoulder and tried not to think of Marc's poor wife, who had died in the fire.
"What will they do to Caine?" she finally asked.
"He has some heavy charges to face—arson, kidnapping, maybe manslaughter." J. D. glanced down at her. "Did you know he was in love with you?"
Hall, Jessica Page 24
