Cry Wolf

by Tami Hoag

“I don't give a damn what Sheriff Kenner had to say. Mr. Boudreaux has a right to counsel.”

  “But, ma'am—”

  “Don't you ‘But, ma'am' me, Deputy. I know my way around a police station, and I know my way around the law. Now open that door.”

  The door cracked open, and the massive Wilson stuck his head in, looking browbeaten and sheepish. “Excuse me, Sheriff Kenner?”

  Kenner was out of his seat and fuming. He went to the door, grumbling under his breath, and grabbed the knob, just barely resisting the urge to slam it shut on Wilson's head.

  “What's the problem here, Deputy?” He ground the whisper between his teeth like dust. “You can't keep one goddamn little slip of a woman out of my hair for five minutes?”

  Laurel's voice sliced through the crack in the door like a knife. “Denying people their rights is serious business, Sheriff. I suggest you open that door at the risk of having me really tear through your hair—what's left of it.”

  Jack rubbed a hand across his mouth to hide his smile. She was a spitfire—no two ways about it. Most women in her situation would have been home, hiding. They certainly wouldn't have come to his rescue after the things he'd said and the way he'd behaved, he thought, the smile dying abruptly.

  “I don't need a lawyer, angel,” he said as Kenner stepped back and let her into the room.

  She shot him a look that had turned better men to ashes. “A man who represents himself has a fool for a client.”

  “Miz Chandler,” Kenner began on a long, bone-weary sigh, “I'm speaking with Mr. Boudreaux about the case you're involved in. This is a conflict of interest.”

  “Not if I don't believe he did it,” Laurel said. “Besides, this is a noncustodial interview, is it not?” She arched a brow above the rim of her oversize glasses, waiting for Kenner to refute the statement. “No charges are being filed. In the event it becomes a conflict of interest, I will recommend Mr. Boudreaux seek other representation.”

  Not giving a damn if either man wanted her there, Laurel marched across the room to the table and took the only seat that looked remotely comfortable—Kenner's. In her heart, she knew she wanted to be here for Jack, but she told herself she was really doing it for Savannah. The more she could find out about what was going on, the better her chance of helping crack the case, and the sooner it could all be laid to rest inside her.

  Kenner scowled at her, then at Boudreaux, wishing fleetingly that he had listened to his old man way back when and gone into insurance. He pulled another straight chair out from the wall, set it at the end of the table, and planted one booted foot on the seat.

  Jack slid lazily back down on the chair he had vacated and took up the smoldering butt of his cigarette between thumb and forefinger. He met Laurel's gaze for an instant and tried to read what she was thinking. She didn't flinch, didn't blink, didn't smile. There were delicate purple shadows beneath her eyes and a vulnerability around her mouth he was certain she didn't realize was there, but she didn't give him anything—except the impression that he'd hurt her badly and she was too damn proud to bend beneath the weight of it.

  Kenner sniffed and cleared his throat rudely, digging a finger into the breast pocket of his uniform to pull a cigarette out from behind his badge. “So, you don't have an alibi for this morning.”

  Crushing out the stub of his smoke, Jack shot the sheriff a look. “Innocent people don't need alibis.”

  “You got an alibi for Wednesday night, ten 'til two A.M.?”

  The question struck Laurel harder than it did Jack. Wednesday night. That had to be Savannah's time of death. Sometime between the hours of ten and two. Midnight. The dead of night. She felt chilled.

  Wednesday night between ten and two. She had come home from dinner with Vivian around nine and gone to bed early because Aunt Caroline had been out with friends and Mama Pearl had been engrossed in a television movie. And something had jerked her from sleep in the middle of the night.

  Oh, God, had she somehow known? Had she somehow sensed the moment her sister had passed from this world?

  The thought left her feeling dizzy and weak.

  Kenner deliberately ignored the sudden pallor of Laurel Chandler's skin. If she couldn't stand heat, she shouldn't have come into the kitchen. He kept his eyes on Jack and repeated the question.

  Howling at the moon, Jack thought. Wandering the banks of the bayou, as he had done most of the day yesterday. Thinking, remembering, punishing himself. Alone.

  “Where were you?” Kenner asked again.

  “He was with me,” Laurel said softly, her heart pounding in her breast. She'd seen the light come on in his window. It had to have been two or after, but he wasn't answering, and she wasn't going to let Kenner pin Savannah's murder on him. Jack couldn't have killed Savannah. He couldn't have brutally murdered a woman and then been moved to tears at the thought of the wife and child he had lost. He couldn't have killed Savannah and then come home and made love with her sister until dawn.

  She glanced up at him. His face was a blank, unreadable mask, the scar on his chin looking almost silver under the harsh fluorescent light. “He was with me. We were together. All night.”

  Swell. Kenner ground his teeth as he ground out his cigarette. The lady lawyer was the alibi. Wasn't that neat? He regarded her for long, silent moments, trying to read a lie in the delicate pink tint of her cheeks. She had loved her sister. He couldn't imagine her lying to cover the murderer's ass. He turned back to Boudreaux. “Is that a fact?”

  “Ah, me,” Jack drawled, forcing the corners of his mouth up into a smug, cat-in-the-cream smile as he splayed his hands across his chest. “I'm not the kind of man to kiss and tell.”

  “You're a smart-ass, that's what you are,” Kenner barked, his temper snapping. He leaned down in Boudreaux's face, his forefinger pointed like a pistol. “There's nothing I hate like a smart-ass. Poor little Cajun kid got himself a scholarship and went off to college. You think that makes you a big shot now? You think 'cause some bunch of New York dickheads pay you money to write trash, that makes you better than ever'body? I say you're still a smart-ass little swamp rat.”

  Laurel watched Jack's jaw tighten at the insult and knew Kenner had managed to strike a nerve more sensitive than most. “Does this character assassination have anything to do with the case, Sheriff?” she asked sharply. “Or are you just getting your jollies for the day?”

  Kenner didn't take his eyes off Jack. “I'll tell you what it has to do with the case. I've got me a dead woman found with a page from one of ol' Jack's books in her stiff little hand. I've got a dead snake wrapped around a door handle—just like in one of Jack's books. What does that add up to, counselor?”

  “It adds up to shit,” Laurel declared. “He'd be a fool to implicate himself that way.”

  “Or a genius. What do you say, Jack? You think you're a genius?”

  Jack lit another Marlboro and rolled his eyes, slouching back in his chair. “Jesus, Kenner, you've been watching too many Clint Eastwood movies.”

  “You ever tie a woman up to have sex with her?”

  He held his gaze on Kenner's, avoiding even a glance at Laurel. “I don't have to force women to go to bed with me.”

  “No, but maybe you like it that way. Some men do.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Jack said, tapping the ashtray. “You're the one wearing handcuffs on your belt. I'm only into violence on paper. Ask anyone who knows me.”

  Kenner's eyes glittered. “I'd ask your wife, but it so happens she's dead too.”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  In one move, Jack came up out of the chair and flung his cigarette down on the floor to singe a hole in the linoleum. Fury built and burned inside him like steam, searing his skin from the inside out. He would have given anything for the chance to tear Kenner's head off without running the risk of prosecution. His hands balled into tight, white-knuckled fists at his sides.

  Kenner smiled coldly, careful to move back a step or two, just in cas
e. “That's a nasty temper you have there, Jack,” he drawled.

  Jack's mouth twisted into a sneer. “Fuck you, Kenner. I'm outta here.” Without a backward glance, he stormed from the interrogation room.

  “You have a real way with people, Sheriff,” Laurel said, brushing past Kenner on her way to the door.

  “So does the killer,” he growled as she walked out.

  Laurel followed Jack through a side door that got them out of the building without being seen by any of the reporters hanging around inside the courthouse. She caught up with him on the sidewalk that cut through the park north of the courthouse, where the moss-draped canopy of live oak offered token protection from the choking heat. The sun had finally emerged to boil the humidity left over from the rain. As a result, the park was empty, air-conditioning being favored way above perspiration. As she hurried down the sidewalk, sweat pearled between her breasts and shoulder blades.

  Jack stopped and wheeled on her suddenly, and she brought herself up short, eyes wide at the fierce expression on his face.

  “What the hell did you do that for?” he demanded.

  Laurel brought her chin up defiantly. “I knew Kenner was questioning you. I couldn't envision you calling an attorney for anything other than to ask him if he had Prince Albert in a can,” she said sarcastically.

  “That's not what I'm talkin' about, sugar,” he said, wagging a finger under her nose. “But while we're on the subject, I can damn well take care of myself.”

  “Yeah, that's what I like,” Laurel drawled, rolling her eyes. “A show of gratitude.”

  “I'd be grateful if you'd keep that pretty little nose out of my business.”

  “Oh, never mind that you follow me all over creation, butting in whenever you damn well feel like it! Besides, this is my business, too, Jack,” she said, jabbing her chest with a forefinger. “It's my sister who's dead. Her killer is going to pay if I have to catch him with my own two hands!”

  “And what if I killed her? You just gave me an alibi!”

  “You didn't,” she declared stubbornly, blinking back the tears of frustration and fury that swam in her eyes.

  “How do you know that?” Jack demanded. “You don' know shit about where I was that night!”

  “I know where I was half that night, and I wasn't with a killer!”

  “Because we had sex—”

  She hauled back a fist and slugged him on the arm as hard as she could. “We made love, and don't you dare call it anything else. We made love, and you know it.”

  He did know it. She had given herself to him without reserve, and he had taken and cherished every minute of it. He had known that night she was everything he'd ever wanted, and the knowledge scared him bone-deep.

  “Why'd you lie to Kenner?” he demanded.

  “Because you weren't giving an answer—”

  “Why?”

  “—and Kenner and Danjermond are more than willing to pin this whole Strangler case on you if they can—”

  “Why'd you lie, Laurel?” he taunted, driven by a need that terrified him, knowing damn well he shouldn't want to hear the answer. “Miss Law and Order,” he sneered. “Miss Justice For All. Why'd you lie?”

  “Because I love you!” she shouted, toe to toe with him.

  “Oh, shit!” He jammed his hands on his waist, then planted them on top of his head and turned around in a circle. Panic snapped inside. Love. Dieu, the one thing he secretly always wanted, never deserved. The thing that held the most potential for pain. And Laurel was offering it to him—No. She was throwing it in his face, like a challenge, daring him to take it.

  “Yeah, well I'm real happy about it, too, Jack,” Laurel shot back, his reaction stinging like a slap in the face. She sniffed and wiped a hand under her nose. “I really need to fall in love right now. I really need to be in love with a man who's dedicated his life to self-torment.”

  “Then just drop it,” Jack said cruelly. “I never meant to give you more than a good time.”

  “Oh, yeah, it's been a riot,” Laurel sneered, fighting the tears so hard, her head was pounding like a trip-hammer. “It's been a regular Dr. Jekyll–Mr. Hyde laugh a minute!”

  “Fair exchange for a little research,” he said, driving the knife a little deeper and hating himself for it.

  “I don't believe you,” Laurel declared, grabbing onto that disbelief and clinging to it desperately, swinging it at him like a club. “I don't believe that's the only reason you've been with me.”

  “You can't dismiss evidence just because it doesn't suit you, counselor,” he said coldly.

  “Tell me there's a book,” she demanded, glaring at him through her tears. She grabbed his arm and tried in vain to turn him toward her. “You look me in the eye, Jack Boudreaux, and tell me there's a book with me in it. You couldn't be that cruel and be so tender with me at the same time.”

  Jack had thought once that she would be a lousy poker player because he could see everything she felt in her eyes, but she was calling his bluff now with more guts than any man he'd ever faced across a table. And damned if he could do it. He couldn't look down into that earnest, beautiful face and tell her he'd never done anything but use her.

  “I don't need this,” he grumbled, waving her off.

  “No, you don't, do you, Jack?” Laurel said, advancing as he backed away across the thin grass. “You'll be happy to sit in that dump of a house, beating on yourself for the next fifty years or until your liver gives out, whichever comes first. That's a helluva lot easier than taking a chance on finding something better.”

  “I don't deserve anything better.”

  “And what do I deserve?” she demanded. “You called me arrogant. How dare you presume to know what's best for me? And what a fool you are to take the blame for someone else's weakness. Evie needed help. She could have gotten it for herself. Other people could have tried to help her. It wasn't all on your shoulders, Jack. You're not the keeper of the world.”

  “Oh, Christ, that's rich! The pot calls the kettle black! You take everything on as if God Himself appointed you! You take the responsibility, you take the blame. Well, I've got news for you, sugar: I don' wanna be one of your great causes. Butt outta my life!”

  Laurel stood there and watched him stalk away, so filled with pain and impotent fury that she couldn't seem to do anything but clench her muscles until she was trembling with it. “Damn,” she muttered as a pair of tears slipped over her lashes and rolled down her cheeks. The wall of restraint cracked a little, and another drop of anger leaked out.

  “Damn, damn, damn you, Jack Boudreaux!” she snarled under her breath.

  Without a thought to the consequences, she turned and slammed her fist against the rough bark of a persimmon tree, scraping the thin skin on her knuckles and sending pain singing up her arm. Good. It was at least a better kind of pain than the one burning in her chest.

  She loved him.

  “Damn you, Jack,” she whispered.

  Blinking against the tears, she lifted her hand and sucked on her knuckles, trying to think of what to do next. She had more important things to think of than her broken heart. She would go home and regroup. Spend some time with Aunt Caroline while her brain turned over clues and theories, trying to come up with a picture of a killer. Not because she didn't believe anyone else could do it, but because she was bound by duty and love for a sister who had sheltered and cared for her.

  Danjermond was waiting for her beside Caroline's BMW. His coffee brown jacket hung open, the sides pushed back. His hands were in his trouser pockets. But if his stance was casual, his mood was not. Laurel sensed a tension about him, humming around him like electricity in the air.

  “I'm surprised at you, Laurel,” he murmured, his gaze as sharp and steady as the beam of a laser.

  The word “surprised” translated to “disappointed,” but Laurel wasn't particularly interested in what Stephen Danjermond thought of her, one way or the other. He was Vivian's choice for her, not her ow
n, and she was through trying to please her mother. Without a word of comment, she dug a hand into her bag to fish out the keys.

  “You lied,” he said flatly.

  She didn't bother asking him how he knew any of what had happened in the interrogation room; she had been a prosecutor, had stood on the other side of two-way mirrors herself. Poker-faced, she looked up at him. “I was with Jack the night Savannah died.”

  “But not all night,” he insisted. “I could hear the hesitation in your voice. Slight, but there. And Boudreaux's reaction—good, but guarded. He was surprised you would lie for him. So am I. I thought you were a purist. Justice by the book.”

  “Jack didn't kill Savannah,” she said, sorting out the proper key and resisting the urge to back away from him.

  “How do you know?” he queried softly. “Instinct? Would you know the killer if you looked him in the eye, Laurel?”

  She stared up at him, remembering the feel of a gaze in her dreams. Eyes without a face. Memory stirred uneasily. “Perhaps.”

  “The way you knew the defendants in Scott County were guilty? Instinct, but no evidence. You need evidence, Laurel,” he persisted. “No one will believe you without evidence.”

  “The charges are being dismissed, Ms. Chandler . . . lack of sufficient evidence . . . You didn't do your job, Ms. Chandler. . . . You blew it. . . .” The voices echoed in her head, bringing with them shadows of the stress, the desperation. The combination threatened to shake her, but she held firm against them.

  “You're the one who'll try this case if Kenner can make an arrest, Mr. Danjermond,” she said evenly. “Maybe you should be more concerned about finding some evidence yourself instead of worrying about what I'm doing or not doing.”

  He said nothing while she unlocked the door to the BMW and pulled it open. She stepped around it on the pretense of tossing her handbag on the seat, but was just as glad to put the distance and the steel between them.

  “Isn't that right?” she said, turning toward him once again.

  He smiled slightly, a smile that for its strange perfection made the nerves tingle along the back of her neck.