by Tami Hoag
“I learned the privileges of wealth and the wisdom of discretion early on. So I knew better than to appease myself with a coed. Whores are much better at pleasing a man, anyway, and so much more expendable. I got carried away with one. Strangled her while we were in the throes of passion.
“No one ever suspected me. Why would they? I was the handsome, talented son of a prominent family, and she was just another whore who fell victim to a professional hazard.”
Laurel listened, shocked and repulsed at the lack of feeling in his voice. He was completely without remorse, completely devoid of conscience. Emotionless, soulless; he had said so himself that day at Beauvoir. There would be no appealing to his sense of mercy or humanity, because he didn't have any. Escape was their only hope, and that hope was so slim as to be nearly nonexistent. She couldn't leave Jack, couldn't take him with her even if she could somehow get away. And what chance did she have out here, barefoot with her hands tied behind her back? None. If Danjermond didn't get her, something else would.
They turned off the bayou road and onto a narrow dirt track that led deeper into the swamp. Branches slapped at the sides of the truck as it crept down the path. The growth was so thick, the headlights barely penetrated. Laurel felt cocooned within the dark confines of the Blazer, cocooned in a bizarre world where Mozart played while a murderer calmly told her his life story.
She tried to memorize the turns they took, tried to gauge how far they had gone, but everything seemed distorted—time, distance, reality. Her arms ached abominably from being held in such an unnatural position. Every lurch of the truck sent pain shooting between her shoulder blades.
She glanced into the backseat at Jack, and her heart flipped over as his left eye blinked open for a moment. He was alive. Though not much, it was something to hang on to.
“You surprised me, Laurel,” Danjermond said. He slowed the Blazer to a crawl as he piloted it through a shallow stream. As they climbed back onto what passed for solid ground out here, he stared at her across the cab, his lean face lit by the glow of the dashboard instruments. “I really didn't think you would break into my home. Even after you lied to Kenner, I believed you were too ‘by the book' for that.”
“I don't give a damn about the book,” she said. “I believe in justice. I'll take it whatever way I can get it.”
He smiled at that, truly pleased, and faced forward again as the path turned and ran along a bank. “I was right. You're much stronger than you thought, Laurel. It's really too bad I had to catch you with evidence that could incriminate me. I would have enjoyed a longer game.”
He would have put her through Scott County all over again—the accusations, the disbelief, the desperation, all of it—for his own amusement. Laurel wanted to berate him for calling life and death a game. She wanted to rail at him for playing with the system he had sworn to uphold, but there seemed no point in it. He believed he was above it all—the law, the rules of society. And to date he had no reason to think otherwise. He had fooled everyone, had gotten away with the ultimate crime again and again.
“What will you do with us?” she asked flatly, deciding it was better to know than to imagine.
“I will lead the sheriff out to the site of a grisly murder-suicide I heard about through an anonymous tip. Poor Jack went over the edge at last. Couldn't deal with what he'd done to you. Took a gun and shot himself in the head.”
Thereby obliterating the head wound Danjermond had already dealt him. And she would die exactly as the others had died, tying Jack firmly to the series of murders. Danjermond would see to every detail. No one would question the outcome.
“Not quite the glamour of a trial,” she muttered.
“No. I do regret that. But still, there will be a good deal of regional and national news coverage, and as district attorney I will, naturally, act as spokesman for the parish.”
“Naturally.”
“Don't take it too hard, Laurel,” he said, as he piloted the Blazer into a ramshackle shed that was tucked between trees and nearly obscured by vines. He cut the engine and turned to face her. “You couldn't have won. You couldn't have stopped me.”
Laurel said nothing. She stared at him across the narrow space of the cab, remembering clearly the way he had looked over the dinner table in the house she had grown up in. “You believe in evil, don't you, Laurel?”
Yes, she did believe in evil, and she knew without a doubt that she was looking into the face of it.
He hauled Jack out of the truck first, carrying him out of the shed and out of her sight. Laurel struggled against the cloth that bound her hands, while her gaze scanned the cab for some kind of weapon—both acts useless. Danjermond was back for her quickly, and guided her ahead of him by her bound hands, down the muddy bank to an old bâteau that bobbed among the reeds.
At his prodding, she climbed in and sat on a black tarp on the flat bottom of the boat, with Jack lying in a heap behind her. Laurel leaned back and brushed her fingertips along the scuffed leather of his boots, trying to take some comfort in his nearness, and then her fingers stumbled over the lump of a knot.
Danjermond's attention was on the outboard motor. With a snap of his wrist, it roared to life and the boat eased away from the shore.
The black water gleamed like glass under the light of a partial moon. Bald cypress and tupelo trees jutted up from the smooth surface, straight and dark, looming above the swamp. In the near distance, thunder rolled and lightning flashed pink behind a bank of clouds. South, Laurel thought automatically, fingers picking awkwardly at the knot behind her. A storm moving up from the Gulf.
A storm, Jack thought dimly. Or was the rumbling in his head? Dieu, his head felt like an overripe melon that had met abruptly with the business end of a hammer. He forced his eyelids open—a monumental effort—and tried to take stock of his surroundings. A boat. He could hear the weak whine of a small outboard, feel the buoyancy of water beneath him, smell the rank aromas of damp and decomposing vegetation that was the bayou.
Fighting against the urge to cry out, he turned his head a scant inch and tried to make out the image above him. Women. Two. One. The shape blurred and multiplied, came together, then divided. Trying to clear his vision drained his strength, and he slipped back toward oblivion.
“I find the swamp a fascinating place, don't you, Laurel?”
Laurel. He struggled into full consciousness again, the strain making him dizzy. Laurel. Danger. Danjermond. The fight came back to him in broken snatches, just the memory intensifying the pain in his head. Danjermond had clubbed him. He had a concussion at the very least. At worst, what he was lapsing in and out of was not consciousness but existence. He forced a message down from his battered brain to his fingers, flexing them slowly, slightly. They moved—he thought.
He rested then, and conversation came to him in bits, fading in and out like a radio with poor reception.
“. . . a perfect world in many ways,” Danjermond said, his voice hollow and distant, as if it were coming down a long tunnel.
“. . . for predators . . . senseless killing . . .”
“. . . thrill of the hunt . . .”
“. . . sadistic son of a bitch . . .”
He almost smiled at that. Laurel. She would stand up to a tiger and spit in its eye before it had her for lunch. Her courage never ceased to amaze him. She wouldn't back down from Danjermond. But Danjermond would kill her just the same.
While I lie here and let it happen.
Blackie's face loomed up behind his eyelids, snarl-
ing, taunting. “Good for nothin', T-Jack. Always were, always will be.”
The boat seemed to spin beneath him, and nausea crawled up the back of his throat. An old hand at hangovers, he fought off the sensations, opened his eyes, and focused them hard on Laurel's back until the pounding in his head was so loud and relentless, he thought it a wonder no one else heard it. Gathering his strength, he made one effort to push himself up, but at that moment the motor cut and the bâteau bumped gently agai
nst a dock. Knocked off balance, he slumped back down, groaning as his head hit the bottom of the boat.
Laurel fought against the overwhelming urge to turn toward the faint moan. It was best not to react. If Jack was coming around, she didn't want Danjermond to know. They needed whatever slight edge they could get. She groaned, twisting her head to the side, as if trying to alleviate a cramp in her neck. Danjermond flicked a glance at her as he tied the boat off.
They had moved toward the storm as the storm had been moving toward them. It was overhead now. The sky was rumbling and crackling. The first flurry of fat raindrops hurled down on them, as Danjermond grabbed her by the arm and hauled her up on the rickety dock beside him. The boards groaned and dipped, elastic with rot, but they held as he turned and herded her onto shore and toward a tar-paper shack that teetered on stilts a few yards back from the dock.
The rain came harder. Lightning shattered the black of the sky, and the clouds ripped open, drenching them. Gasping, Laurel ducked her head as the water sluiced down her face. Danjermond hustled her up the steps and produced a key to the padlock that held the door shut.
The cabin was pitch-black inside, but the scent of blood assaulted her nostrils and balled in her throat. Human blood. Her sister's blood. Laurel squeezed her eyes closed as fear surged through her in a flood tide and bile rose up the back of her throat. Beneath the noise of rain on the tin roof, she could hear Danjermond shuffling around, striking a match.
“It isn't much, but it's dry,” he said, playing the humble host. Amusement tinted his voice as he reached out a hand and cupped her chin. “Now, Laurel, you're not the sort to hide. Open your eyes and face your destiny head-on.”
He had lit candles, half a dozen or more. Tall tapers with flames that flickered and danced, their light waving sinuously over the meager contents of the ten-by-twelve room. A small dresser stood along the wall to her left with a cluster of candle stands on its scarred surface. A straight chair sat directly in front of her. Beyond it stood two more small, spindle-legged stands, one on either side of the bed, both of them crowned with a flickering candle.
All this Laurel took in through her peripheral vision, the facts filing themselves away in her brain while her attention was riveted on the bed. It was iron. Black iron. Slender pieces curved into graceful shapes to form the headboard and footboard. The four posts were low, entwined with pencil-slim iron vines and topped with polished brass finials in the shape of a spade. It was beautiful. Sinister. White silk ties hung from the headboard. A drape of sheer, pristine white silk covered the mattress, but dark stains showed through like shadows. Bloodstains.
Savannah had lain on that bed and had the life bled out of her, choked out of her. And Annie. And women whose names she would never know. Their screams filled her head like the echoes of ghosts. Their pain clawed at her. Their panic rose in her throat.
The thunder rolled. Lightning flashed through the window as bright as a spotlight. The rain poured down, pounding like nails on the roof.
Beyond the cabin stretched miles of wilderness. No one to help her. No one to hear her cries. No mercy. No justice. She thought of Jack and what might have been if fate had taken a kinder path for them both. Wondered dimly if any of it had ever been within their power.
Then Danjermond's hand closed on her arm and he led her toward the bed.
The rain came down as hard as hailstones, pelting exposed skin, slicing and pounding. A real frog strangler. Frogs, hell, Jack thought, coughing as the water pooled in the bottom of the boat and drifted into his mouth.
Strangler.
The word slapped him into consciousness, and he jerked his head up, grunting hard at the pain, the dizziness. Laurel. She was gone. Danjermond was gone. Danjermond would kill her. And you're lying in a goddamn boat in the rain. Worthless, good for nothing, son of a son of a bitch.
Gritting his teeth against the agony, he tried to right himself, confused at first that he couldn't seem to move his arms. Pain came in staccato bursts as he rolled partway onto his back and took the pounding rain full in the face. His hands were tied behind him. His feet were tied.
But he had moved his feet. He thought. He tried now with some success. They were bound but not tightly. Loose enough to struggle against. Loose enough that he could work his boots off, and the binding with them.
The task sapped his energy, left him gasping for breath and choking on the rain, but he managed to get his feet free. Slowly he rolled over onto his knees and tried to bring his head up an inch at a time. The pain beat relentlessly, like a mallet inside his skull, the rhythm syncopated with a driving urgency.
Laurel. He had to get to Laurel. He would die in the process or in the aftermath, of that he had no doubt, but he had to try. For her . . . to make her proud . . . to show her he loved her . . . he hadn't told her . . . should have told her . . . wished he could have made it work . . .
The thoughts swirled around his brain as he struggled to stand in the boat, and the blackness swirled with them. Flecked with stars . . . promising relief . . . beckoning . . . sweeping in . . .
Fighting him was futile, but she fought him just the same. There was a principle involved. Honor. She would not go meekly to her death like a sheep to the proverbial slaughter. She wouldn't make it easy for him, would do her utmost to spoil his enjoyment.
The instant Danjermond's hand settled on her arm, Laurel jerked away from him and bolted for the door. He lunged after her, catching hold of her ponytail and jerking her back hard enough to make her teeth snap together. Laurel shrieked, in anger and pain, and twisted toward him, lashing out with her feet, kicking at his knees, his shins, any part of him she could hit.
His lips pulled back against his teeth in a feral snarl, and the back of his hand exploded against the side of her face, snapping her head to the side, bringing a burst of stars behind her eyes and the taste of blood to her mouth. The room seemed to swirl once around her, and unable to use her arms for balance, she staggered sideways and fell. On her knees, she tried to scramble for the door, never taking her eyes off it, willing herself to stand, to run, to get away. Adrenaline pumped through her like a drug, driving her forward even when Danjermond caught hold of her bound wrists and hauled her up and back, wrenching her arms in the sockets.
But her struggles stilled automatically as the blade of a dagger glinted in the candlelight.
Laurel's heart drummed, impossibly hard, impossibly loud, as the blade came nearer and nearer her face. It was slim and elegant, like the hand that curled around its golden hilt. The blade was polished steel that had been ornately engraved from the guard to the tip. Beautiful, deadly, like the man who held it.
“I would prefer if you would cooperate, Laurel,” he said, stepping in close behind her, his left hand sliding along her jaw, fingers pressing into her flesh. The knife inched nearer.
The pitch of his voice was the same even tone that had always somehow managed to strike a nerve in her, but no longer was it devoid of emotion. Anger strummed through every carefully enunciated word as he brought the dagger closer and closer. Her breath caught hard in her lungs as he touched the point of it to the very tip of her nose.
“Be a good girl, Laurel,” he murmured, sliding the dagger lightly downward. Over her upper lip to her lower lip. He let it linger in the valley between as if he were contemplating sliding it into her mouth. “I know Vivian raised you to be a good girl.”
“Be a good girl, Laurel. Don't make trouble, Laurel. Keep your mouth closed and your legs crossed, Laurel.” Somehow, she didn't think this was a situation that had come to her mother's mind during those lectures on comportment.
Laurel said nothing, afraid to speak, afraid to breathe as the blade point traced down her chin, down the center of her throat to the vulnerable hollow at its base. If she struggled now, would he slice her throat and be done with her? That seemed preferable, but there were no guarantees. If she waited, bought time—even a minute or two—might she find another chance to break away?
> Outside, the storm had rolled past and gone on its way toward Lafayette, but the rain continued, pelting the roof, tapping at the single, small window like bony fingertips. What kind of chance at survival would she have in the swamp? What kind of chance would she have here?
The dagger rested in the V of her collarbone, the point tickling the delicate flesh above. The sensation made her want to gag. She swallowed back the need, felt the tip bite into her skin. Every cell of her body was quivering. She felt as fragile as a twig, poised to snap in Danjermond's grasp. Her eyes filled, but she held back the tears, held back the hysteria, grabbed her sanity with both mental hands, and hung on as Danjermond's words about Savannah echoed in her head—“She was completely insane by the end.”
She wouldn't give him the satisfaction. He had killed her sister for sport, meant to climb on the bodies of his victims to fame in a profession he mocked with every breath he took.
“Damn you,” she whispered, seizing her anger and hate and using them as shields to beat back the terror. “Damn you to hell.”
Danjermond leaned close, bringing his face down next to hers, rubbing his cheek against hers. “I don't believe in an afterlife, Laurel,” he murmured, dragging the dagger down between her breasts, where her heart pounded beneath the thin fabric of her T-shirt. With a slight motion of his wrist the point nipped into the cotton and nudged her breast. “I'd say, if there's a hell, it's here and now, and you're in it with me.”
A scream tore from her throat as Danjermond sliced violently downward with the blade, opening her T-shirt from neck band to hem. Instinctively, she bolted back, colliding with his long, lean body, her hands pressing against his engorged sex. His left arm snaked around her middle and held her there as he eased his pelvis forward and raised the dagger slowly to her left breast.
Razor-sharp, the blade kissed along the plump swell beneath her nipple, and her blood beaded, bright red, along the knife edge, rolling across it like pearls to splash down on the floor. The pain came seconds later, throbbing with her heartbeat. And finally the tears spilled over her lashes and rolled down her cheeks, pale counterpoints to the drops of blood sliding down her rib cage.
