Exposure (29 page)

Clare moved cautiously through the woods, her heart drumming so hard she could feel it throbbing in her fingertips. She didn't know what the hell she was doing skulking through the bushes; she should be back at the turnoff, waiting to give directions to whomever showed up first to rescue them. If she were smart, that's what she'd be doing.

Well, only in her dreams did she claim relationship to an exalted intelligence. Maybe this was dumb.

No, not maybe, most likely it was dumb. She only knew that she couldn't bear to sit in her car and do nothing while Grant Woodard was doing God-alone-knew-what to her friend and her friend's child.

She came to the edge of the clearing sooner than she'd expected and quickly brought herself up short, squatting down out of sight behind a bush. Cautiously, she peered around it.

Facing her, not more than fifty feet away, was Emma. She was standing stiffly, holding Gracie, and her face was devoid of color as she stared at the man in front of her. His back was to Clare. The black luxury car was several feet away, its doors wide open.

His back was to her.

Slowly, Clare rose to her feet and waved her arms slowly over her head. As soon as she knew she'd caught Emma's attention, she sank back down behind the bush.

Emma tried desperately to clear her mind so she could think. Clare was here, right here; this was an advantage she must find a way to make use of. How could she make use of it?

She looked at the man who had been her longtime guardian, and mentally holding her breath, hoping to God this didn't unlock a set of demons she was in no way prepared to deal with, she asked softly, "Why did you take those videos of me, Grant?" She was careful to abolish any hint of censure from her voice.

He shrugged. "I like to watch." No excuses, no sly hints of psychosis. A simple statement of fact.

It stopped her dead for a moment. "Uh, watch what exactly? Other people's sexual acts?"

Yes. And no. It was not that simplistic. True, voyeurism was the only way he could function sexually. But the power of control over another person's privacy was the real addiction. He shrugged again.

"If you looked at those tapes at all, you know it's nothing that tacky. How many were taken in your bedroom, Emma, an eighth of them? A quarter? You're just . . . my special girl."

"Uh-huh." The vigorous bobbing of her head made Emma feel like one of those ridiculous dogs one saw in the back windows of cars. "Oui," she agreed, praying all the while she wouldn't throw up on his feet.

"I am." Queasy stomach roiling uneasily, she knew Grant wouldn't find her so special if she allowed the nausea to take its natural course, so she swallowed hard, forcing it back. At all costs she needed to keep him on an even mental keel, his attention firmly on her and away from Gracie.

"And I like to keep tabs on you, reassure myself that you're doing well."

A scream was building in Emma's throat, and she gritted her teeth against it. "I didn't understand," she managed to say in a placating tone. "I'm sorry; I shouldn't have left N'Awlins the way I did. I just didn't . . . understand."

"But you do now, don't you, Emma?" Grant reached across the short distance separating them and touched her hair. "You know now that you have to come back home with me. Don't you?"

"Oui."

"And things will be just like they were. You'll have your little house on the Vieux Carre and we'll share beignets at the Cafe du Monde on Sunday mornings. I'll take care of you. And you'll forget all about marrying this Donnelly character. Won't you?"

"Oui, Papa." She saw with satisfaction that the courtesy address had disarmed him.

Gracie's head lifted out of its niche in the contour of her mother's neck. "But Elbis Don' lee gon' be my daddy," she protested, and Emma's arms clamped around her in terrified reaction, her hand raising up to cup the back of her child's head and to press Gracie's face back into her shoulder. In warning. In a wordless attempt to caution her to say no more.

Bon Dieu, not quickly enough. Grant's attention was drawn to her daughter. Assessingly, he studied the back of Gracie's head, the possessive clasp of her little arms and legs around her mother.

Not knowing if she were opening up a whole new can of worms, wanting only to divert his attention, Emma demanded, "What about Big Eddy, Papa?"

He stared at Gracie's back for several nerve-wracking moments longer, but then finally raised his gaze to Emma's face. His expression was noncommittal. "What about him?"

"Why did you do it? I'd been livin' with you for three years by the time he was scheduled to be released.

I would have stayed with you if you had only asked me to."

"No," he contradicted flatly. "You liked him best; you would have gone with him when he got out. But you were my special girl, Emma Terese; I wasn't about to start sharing your affections again. And I sure as hell wasn't going to allow him to take you away. Eddy'd had his chance, and he hadn't done that good a job of keeping you safe." The look he leveled at her was rife with self-righteousness. "No, it was much better my way. He was incompetent and careless. I, on the other hand, could give you what you needed."

Emma had to turn away, knowing there was no way she could disguise her hatred. She gritted her teeth against the pain; her eyes squeezed shut. Ah, Eddy, she mourned. She'd suspected it; bon Dieu, she had suspected it since the moment she'd first viewed the tapes. But to have it confirmed!

She wanted to cause him pain. Oh, God, she wanted to strike and strike and strike at him until he was annihilated. Eradicated from the face of the earth.

Ruthlessly she composed her features, drove the desire from her eyes. She sidled a few steps sideways and a few feet closer to the woods. Then, her face carefully free of expression, she turned to face Grant once again.

The smile she forced felt grotesquely stiff. She opened her mouth to tell him again that she "understood," but she simply couldn't force the words past her lips one more time.

She couldn't. Her mouth reformed the sickly, unnatural little smile as panic beat at the corners of her mind, threatening to smother her ability to reason, to plan. Think, dammit! Damn you, Emma, think!

Allowing the smile to drop away, knowing it wouldn't fool a soul, not even a man in the grip of a delusion that permitted him to see only what he wanted to see, she groped for a way to get Gracie safely to Clare. But her mind had gone blank. She simply stared at Grant.

Ah, sweet Jesus, she had to think.

Elvis snapped off the siren when he turned onto Emery Road. Teeth gritted, hunched over the steering wheel, he piloted the Suburban down the country road at a breakneck speed, stomping on the brakes and sending the car into a sideways skid when he came to Clare's first flare.

Bless her. Ah, sweet, merciful God, bless her. Throwing the transmission into reverse, he roared back to the turnoff and then threw it into drive and cut the wheel sharply to the right. It nearly killed him, but he kept the speed down as he searched for the next turnoff.

He was talking into the radio, giving exact coordinates, when he pulled up behind Clare's car a few moments later. It was deserted. Swearing under his breath, he grabbed the rifle out of the rack on the cage that separated front seat from back and leaped out of the car, leaving the door hanging wide open.

It was then that he heard screams filtering through the woods.

"Why are we out here, Grant?" Emma demanded for lack of anything better to say. She slapped at a mosquito that had landed on her wrist.

"I wanted a private place where we could talk."

"Well, we've talked," she retorted, deliberately petulant. She blew her bangs off her forehead. "I've said I was sorry I misunderstood you, but enough is enough! Let's go catch the ferry now and get of this rockpile."

"But, Maman," Gracie protested, her voice mercifully muffled in the contour of Emma's neck.

"Hush, Grace Melina!" Emma made her own voice stern, praying her daughter wouldn't choose this of all times to dig her heels in. "I'm talking to your grandpapa, not you." It almost gagged her to honor him with that title.

Gracie's head reared back. "But, Maman, we can't go. We haffa mawwy Elbis."

Oh, please, bebe, please. You gotta be quiet now or we're both going to be in deep, deep, trouble. "There's been a change of plans, angel pie," she said gently.

Grant was looking at the two of them, and he nodded his head decisively, apparently coming to a decision. "Leave her," he ordered. "Let's get going."

Emma's head went back. "What? "

"Leave Gracie here. I thought at one time that she, too, would be my special girl. But she has no loyalty—she's turning out to be too much trouble."

Emma was stunned by his cavalier dismissal of a child he'd once considered his pampered grandchild. "She's three years old, Grant, and you scared her half to death! Of course she's leery of you." Sweet merciful mother of God. What kind of monster proposed just walking off and leaving a child on her own in the woods near a cliff? His being delusional was one thing, but surely he didn't believe she would blindly fall in with this plan. Did he? No, it was a test of some sort. One she was about to flunk. Emma's arms tightened protectively around Gracie as she prepared to run for their lives.

"I don't care," she heard Grant replying through the red mist that fogged her reasoning processes.

"Leave her here. I'm tired of her shit, and from now on, it's going to be just you and me."

Belatedly, Emma's brain kicked in. This is it, you idiot, she berated herself. This is how you get Gracie into Clare s keeping. Looking Grant straight in the eye, she nodded her head. "Oui," she agreed. "You're right, of course. You and me."

"And me, Mommy; and me!"

Emma could have cheerfully slit her own throat. Bon Dieu, what had she been thinking? She'd been so busy looking for a way to keep Gracie safe that she'd overlooked the fact that never in a million years would her vocal little daughter realize the words being said here didn't necessarily represent the truth. Gracie took the spoken word at face value, and what she was hearing from her own mother's lips was clearly detrimental to her well-being. There was no way she was going to accept this without voicing an argument.

As if to underscore Emma's realization, panic colored Gracie's voice when she insisted, "You 'n' me, Mommy. Go home, now, 'kay? 'Kay, Mommy?" She nodded vigorously and her voice picked up volume, lost control. She screeched when Grant suddenly reached out for her, and she batted him away with one arm. "No! I don't yike you—go 'way!" She appealed to her mother, who had danced them out of Grant's reach. "I don't yike him, Maman. Wanna go home now, 'kay? Wanna go home to Elbis."

"Hush, Grace Melina," Emma murmured in her daughter's ear. "Take it easy now, S'il vous plait." She fended off Grant when he reached for her child again. "Give me a moment!" she snapped. "Can't you see she's scared?" Swinging them away, cupping Gracie's head in one hand and holding it to her lips, she whispered directly into her child's ear, "Mrs. Mackey's over there in the woods, chere. She"s waitin' to take care of you. You go to her, now, and Maman will get rid of Grandpapa. I'll come get you in a minute, bebe. In just a minute."

But Gracie was beyond hearing, let alone understanding. She'd progressed into full-blown hysteria, screaming and sobbing and clinging, while frantically drumming her feet against her mother's thighs. Emma grimly held her clamped to her torso and did her best to immobilize the thrashing legs. She murmured soothing reassurances into Gracie's ear.

"Give her to me," Grant suddenly roared, losing all patience. He reached out to snatch the little girl from her mother's arms, but Emma twisted away. "Goddamn little snot!" he fumed. "I should have snapped her neck while I had the chance. Hand her over, Emma. I'm going to put an end to this caterwauling once and for all."

"No," Emma snarled, skipping back from him. Adrenaline rushed through her veins and her heart pumped overtime with fear for her child's safety. Oh, Dieu, why hadn't she foreseen this? She'd used a goddamn euphemism for Bill Gertz's murder; there must have been other words she could have used to phrase this so her child wouldn't think she was being deserted in the woods by her mother and grandfather. "Just give me a moment to settle her down."

"I've given you all the time I'm going to allow. It's time for us to go. Now hand her over!"

"Excuse me!" A third voice suddenly intervened with strident authority. The drama on the barren mesa froze like a children's game of Statues as Emma's and Grant's heads swung to look toward the woods. Gracie continued to sob aloud.

Clare came striding across the plateau, not halting until she was directly in front of them. "Who are you people?" she demanded. "And what is all this ruckus? I'll have you know you're trespassing on private property." She latched unto Emma's upper arm. "Come. You have to leave. I'll escort you to your car."

She had dragged Emma several steps, not toward the car but the woods, before Grant recovered from his surprise. He stopped trailing the two women. "Now see here," he began, only to be overridden by Clare.

"No, you see here," she snapped. "All you city people are the same. You think you can just waltz onto our island and make yourselves at home wherever you darn well please! Well, I don't know you from Adam, sir, and this is my property, so I'll ask you to take yourself off it or I'll call the sheriff."

Gracie's hysteria had been dwindling during this tirade. Her grip on her mother's neck loosened, and she raised her head, craning her neck to look at Clare. Knuckling her eyes, she said in bewilderment, "But, you know me, Miss-us Mack—"

Emma thrust her into Clare's arms. "Get her out of here," she shouted. Not waiting to watch Clare whirl and run for the woods, with the once again hysterical Gracie in her arms, she spun around and rammed her shoulder into Grant's mid-section, knocking him off balance. Then, Gracie's screams ringing in her ears, she ran hell-for-leather in the opposite direction from the one Clare had taken—toward the cliff's edge.

It wasn't the most ideal spot for a showdown with a lunatic, but then she didn't have a lot of alternatives, or the luxury of time to plan. Her only conscious hope was that if Grant were presented with an option, he would choose to pursue her. All she could do was assure he wasn't granted the opportunity to seize both her and Gracie.

But, oh, God, what if it didn't work? The smart money would be on recapturing Gracie. After all, if he had her, he as good as had Emma, since she would do anything to prevent him from hurting her child. She risked a glance over her shoulder.

And a scream exploded from her throat when she saw him mere feet behind her.

She put on a burst of speed, cursing whatever fate had led her to choose today of all days to trade in her Keds for a pair of skimpy-strapped, leather-soled sandals. At least Grant, too, had the disadvantage of wearing city shoes, and she had, by the grace of God, stuck with her original decision to wear walking shorts. For a while that morning she'd leaned toward a skirt. A short, tight skirt, which would have been disastrous on this terrain.

She was younger and faster than Grant, but her feet slid on the rough surface several times, slowing her down. Then her toe caught on a half-buried rock and she stumbled. She saved herself from a fall, but it cost her dearly. Grant lunged for her, catching her arm and swinging her around just as she regained her balance.

She came around swinging, catching him with a lucky punch to the jaw. He swore viciously, but let loose of her arm as his hand flew up in a reflexive action to cup the injured area. Feet scrambling for purchase, she lurched away, head whipping from side to side to determine their position.

They were too near the cliff's edge so she whirled to run for the woods, but Grant brought her down in a flying tackle. Blue sky and dried-out scrub grass whirled in a sickening kaleidoscope as they rolled over and over. Brush scraped at her skin; small rocks and pebbles bruised her as they wrestled on the ground. Then she was on her back, looking up into Grant's face as he straddled her hips.

She'd freely bruited the word "delusional" about in her own mind this afternoon, but she knew now, looking into the face of this man she had once loved, that she hadn't fully realized its actual meaning. "Mad" was a word she'd always used to connote anger. But it was madness in its purest form that she saw when she looked up into Grant's eyes.

The urbane man who had always surrounded himself with the trappings of civilization was gone. In his place was a feral animal, intent on harm. His clothing was rumpled and stained, his hair was in disarray; she'd never before seen him in such a state. But it was his eyes that terrified her. They were the eyes of a stranger, dead and vicious. Devoid of humanity. He wanted to ravage her, to torture and mutilate. He wanted to inflict unbearable pain.

Using her heels for purchase, Emma scrabbled, using her hips and shoulders to push herself back a few feet. Grant knee-walked, keeping pace; then his knees abruptly tightened around her hips, preventing her from going any farther. Panicked, she reached for his eyes, clawing and scratching. His hand swung up and back and then flashed forward, giving her a vicious crack on the side of her head.

Pain exploded in her temple and sensation zinged through her extremities, a weakening that she fuzzily equated to experiences in the past when she'd hit her crazy bone. Her hands dropped like lead onto the prickly grass. Blinking back tears, she stared up at him.

And saw the blood lust in his eyes as he reached for her throat.