Hall, Jessica (10 page)

When his footsteps died away, Caine took his hand from
her
mouth. "There, now." He went to check the window. "He's
gone."

"Why did you do that?" she asked him, her voice remote.

He'd done it because he loved her, more and harder and deeper than
Jean-Delano Gamble ever would. But he could never tell her that. He was just a
swamp rat who worked for her father. "Look at yourself. Look what he's
done to you." He gestured at her dress. "Your daddy told you how it
would be."

She didn't say anything. She simply stared at him.

Awkwardly Caine touched her cheek. "He ain't good enough for
you, chère."

She caught his hand and pulled it away from her face. "You're
wrong. I'm not good enough for him."

Caine almost laughed. "How do you figure that?"

"It doesn't matter how smart I am, or how hard I work, or how
many scholarships I get. I'm trash. I can buy a dozen pair of white gloves and
they'll still know." She tore at her dress with angry hands. "I can't
get the stink of the bayou off of me."

Something pierced his heart like an invisible dagger. "It
ain't nothing to be ashamed of."

She held up a fold of her dress. "Does this look proud to
you, Caine? I wanted to dress like those other girls at school. I wanted to be
like them. I hate what I am." She let go of the ruined material and rested
her brow against the window, staring out at where Jean-Delano had been.
"Now he does, too."

The next day Caine had quit working for Remy and had gone deep
into the bayou to fish and trap alone. He'd built himself a shack, and then a
boat, and then a living. Those hard, lean years had been the making of Caine
Gantry, and when he had saved enough, he'd returned to start his own outfit on
the fringe of
the Atchafalaya. He'd managed to forget about Sable and that
night.

Until she'd come back, too.

Her plans for her fancy community project had infuriated Caine.
She didn't care about the people of the bayou; she just wanted to hand out
charity and run their lives so that she could feel above the rest of them. This
was his home, his people, and he'd earned the right to live here.

She'd given up hers. She didn't belong here anymore.

He went over to the sink and washed his hands before he went back
up to deal with the old man. "What do you need?"

"You heard the news." It wasn't a question. "My
Isabel is in trouble."

Caine wiped his hands off on a rag. "What about it?"

"Somebody tried to kill her."

"I heard." Caine thought of Billy, and then moved his
shoulders. "Likely they were after LeClare, and she got in the way."

Remy grabbed the front of his shirt. "You know something
about this?"

"Just what's on the radio." He gave the old man a mild
look. "You gonna work yourself into another heart attack,
chèr."

"This is my girl I'm talking about, Caine." Remy eased
his hand away. "You know what they're gonna do to her. I need your
help."

"She knew what she was getting into." His mouth curled.
"She should love being in the papers. All that free publicity."

His head snapped back as Remy backhanded him. It wasn't much of a
punch, but it seemed to settle
things. "You best look for your
help somewhere else, Remy."

Sable regained consciousness slowly, but kept her eyes closed and
didn't move. Her head pounded something fierce, but she didn't dare reach up to
check the spot where she'd hit it. Not when she realized she was alone with J.
D., curled up beside him on the front seat of a strange car.

If only he would stop touching her.

He had his hand on her head, his fingers brushing the hair back
from the side of her face. "This hasn't been your day, has it, baby?"
He made a turn, which shifted her a little, and he put his right arm across her
to keep her from tumbling to the floor. "Mine, either. Shit, what else can
go wrong?"

The tenderness in his voice made her want to snarl at him, but she
bit down on her tongue and rode the waves of fury along with the painful
throbbing in her head. A few more minutes, and she'd be at the hospital. He had
to be taking her to a hospital.

He wouldn't take her anywhere else, would he?

She started counting the number of times he stopped the car at red
lights, willing herself not to jerk when he rested his hand at the base of her
throat. His fingertips absently traced the line of her collarbones, leaving
trails of fire over the delicate skin and bones. Gooseflesh rose on her arms as
she recalled how he would do the same thing when he kissed her. A flood of heat
and delight drenched her insides as those old
sensations rushed
through her, just as powerful and intense as they had been ten years ago.

Oh, God, when were they going to get there?

Just as she opened her eyes, he pulled in over a speed bump and
stopped the car. Immediately she closed them and refocused on maintaining her
ruse.

"I've got her," she heard J. D. say, then felt him
lifting her carefully from the seat. He had her out and in his arms, and
carried her as though she weighed no more than an infant.

He didn't let go of her until a nurse hurried up to them and began
asking questions. When a gurney was brought and he laid her down gently on it,
someone draped her with a sheet.

Now he'll go away,
she told herself, relaxing.

He laced her fingers with his. "I'm going in with her."

No, no, leave me alone, J.
D., she pleaded silently as
the nurse took her pulse and snapped out some orders to call radiology and have
the on-call neurosurgeon notified.
Please, just go away.

"I'm Dr. Mason," a crisp female voice said, close to
Sable's left ear. "You know what happened to her?"

"She was hit in the front and the back of her head this
morning, then fell about thirty minutes ago and struck the temple on the left
side."

Someone was snipping away at her clothes. The cool wash of air
against her bare skin made her want to cringe—was he watching them strip her?
"Did you do this to her, sir?" the doctor asked, her voice chilling
over as her fingers searched through Sable's scalp.

J. D.'s voice took on an equally frigid edge. "No, I
didn't."

"What about these burn marks on her clothes?"

"She was caught in a fire this morning," he told her.

"That's when she hit her head the first time. The paramedics
said she might have a mild concussion."

"Why wasn't she brought in before?" The doctor's hands
moved carefully along her body, halting at her wrists. "These look like
defensive wounds. Nancy, call security."

"Hang on, Doc." There was a rustle of cloth and the snap
of a wallet. "I'm Lieutenant Gamble from NOPD, Homicide. This lady is a
witness to a crime."

"Well, she's a patient now. I want a head and chest on this
one, right away." The doctor's voice thawed a few degrees as she quickly
finished the exam. "You can go and wait out in the lobby,
Lieutenant."

"She's under police protection; I'm staying with her."

He wasn't going to leave her.
Please, no, tell him no.

"No, you will not," the doctor snapped, as if hearing
her thoughts.

"Sorry, Lieutenant, but if s hospital policy," the nurse
said. "Don't worry—you'll be able to see her after she's in a room."

"Keep her name off the patient lists—I don't want anyone to
know she's been admitted." J. D. was suddenly very close to her, and she
felt his hand on her face again. He rubbed his thumb along the curve of her
cheek.
"Je vous attendrai."

"Yeah, I know she's at Mercy," Billy snarled into the
pay phone. "I'll go in and do her, but it's gonna cost you another fifty
grand."

The voice on the other end of the line grew ugly.

"You don't want to be shortchanging me," Billy said,
switching the phone from his left to his right ear
as
he turned and looked at the hospital's ER entrance. "Not when I got proof
of what you done."

The line fell silent.

He smiled. "I guess we understand each other. You bring the
rest of my money tomorrow night. Don't be late." He slammed the receiver
down and walked over to the gas station's minimart.

The clerk, a young black man sitting on a stool behind the
counter, put aside the latest issue of
Hustler
to ring up Billy's
six-pack of beer. He looked at the money Billy held out like it was a dead rat.
"There's blood on that, man. I can't take it."

"Wash it off." Billy threw the stained bills on the
counter.

The clerk started to shake his head, then thought better of it and
stuffed the money in his till. "Whatever you say, man."

Billy drove over to the visitors' parking lot at the hospital,
parked in the front row, and popped open a beer. As he drank, he watched how
people came in and went out. The visitors all shuffled through the glassed-in
front entrance, where a guard made them sign in and handed them a tag. The
staff went in through a side door, but Billy couldn't see what was inside. On
the south side of the hospital, a construction crew was working on a fenced-in
skeletal extension of the building. Double doors leading into the hospital had
been propped open, and there was a rack of hard hats outside the fence.
Everyone came and went as they pleased.

He finished his beer and crumpled the can in his fist. Smothering
the bitch with a pillow wouldn't be as nice as watching her burn, but sometimes
a man had to make compromises.

"Did you enjoy your flight, Mr. Gamble?"

Cort would have settled for a nod, but the line of disembarking
passengers ahead of him had stopped for a handicapped passenger having trouble
with his courtesy wheelchair. "Yes, thank you."

"I'm glad we could find you a seat at the last moment."
The friendly flight attendant let her gaze drift down, then back up as her
practiced smile became more genuine. "Are you visiting New Orleans for
Mardi Gras, or are you a local?"

"I'm a native." He checked the line again, then his watch.
He'd tried calling J. D. three times while changing planes in Atlanta, but kept
getting his voice mail. He wasn't going to call home until he got the facts on
the arson and Marc's death straight. He already knew what his mother would have
to say.

"I'll be back next week for a two-day layover," the
attendant confided, and reached out to rest the tips of her manicured fingers
on his sleeve. "Would be great if I had someone to show me around, maybe
take me to dinner?..."

The coy invitation fishing made him take a good look at her. The
blond hair, white teeth, and high breasts were too perfect to be real, but she
had a pleasant
voice and a nice tan. She was petite, too, which he preferred.
From the way she was eyeing his crotch she'd probably be eager to skip the
sights and dinner and head straight for the nearest bed.

Cort never had a problem finding eager women, though, and lately
he'd been getting pretty bored with them.

"There will be a half million men in the city next
week," he told her as the line started moving again and he picked up his
carry-on. "You'll find a date."

As he went downstairs to retrieve his garment bag from baggage
claim, Cort passed by one of the terminal's courtesy television monitors and
caught the tail end of a breaking news broadcast from one of the local city
stations.

"—have finally confirmed that the victim is
forty-seven-year-old Democratic gubernatorial candidate Marc LeClare. Mr.
LeClare, who was a well-known local businessman and community figure, had been
favored to win the election by a two-to-one margin." The anchorman
produced a sympathetic frown before he went on. "The survivor and apparent
witness to the murder, a young woman"—a small, blurry inset photo appeared
on the screen beside the anchorman—"has not yet been identified by
authorities. News Nine will be bringing you live updates as they come in."

It can't be her.
Cort went over and flipped
the channel to another local station, and watched another report about the
murder. This time the broadcast showed his brother and his partner leading the
pale-faced redhead out of an elevator at police headquarters. J. D. looked
grim, as did Terri Vincent, which set off the first alarm in Corf s head. When
the witness lifted her head and looked up blindly into the camera, Cort began
to swear under his breath.

It
was
her—Sable Duchesne, J. D.'s old college girlfriend.
How
the hell did she get involved in this?
He kept watching as Sable got into a
shoving match with a reporter and fell, hitting her head on the way down. The
ferocious look on his brother's face as he lifted her from the floor made Cort
grab his bag and head for the nearest phone—only this time, he called his own
department.