Hall, Jessica (15 page)

Then she moaned under his mouth, and nearly pushed him over the
edge.

J. D. knew he could have her under him on the car seat in three
seconds. He could bury his hard, aching cock in her and, mindlessly pump into
her silky heat until she convulsed around him and screamed his name. Then he
wanted to flip her over and start again from that side. She wouldn't fight him.
She was practically melting all over him now.

He dragged a hand down and filled his palm with the satisfying
weight of her breast. He'd erase Gantry's touch from her, an inch at a time.

Right here, right now.
The way she arched and
shuddered under him as he played with her made his lips curl against hers.
She
wants it like I do.

Then she made another sound—a new sound that had nothing to do
with hunger and sex and everything to do with fear. It penetrated the roaring
in his head and made him wrench his mouth from hers.

"Jean-Del." She looked up at him, her eyes wide, her
lashes spiky and wet. Her hand moved to rest over
his, and he became
aware of the frantic beat of her heart. "Don't."

"I don't want to." Oh, but he did. He wanted to be
inside her, all over her. He braced himself against her and the car, fighting
for control.

The sound of Caine Gantry shouting something obscene in French
drifted from the docks.

He was no better than that Cajun son of a bitch, losing control
like this. Disgusted with himself, J. D. pulled Sable aside and yanked open the
door. "Get in."

She slid in and over to the passenger side as he got behind the
wheel and started the engine. He could feel her withdrawing from him, huddling
with her arms wrapped around herself against the door. She was shaking so much
he could feel that, too. Then she did something that made him want to jerk her
back into his arms for round two.

She held out her wrists.

He rammed the gear shift into reverse. "I'm not going to cuff
you."

Slowly she lowered her hands into her lap. "But I ran away. I
stole a car." As if she was trying to persuade him she was not to be
trusted.

"Did you think grand theft auto would get you out of
this?" He sped backward until he found enough clearance, then made a
U-turn and headed back toward the main road. He stayed quiet until his temper
had eased back from boil to low simmer, and then he glanced at her. "I
have to know about you and Marc."

"You won't believe me."

"Try me."

"All right." She stared blindly out at the night.
"My mother died four months ago. She had bone cancer."

Of all the things he'd expected her to say, that wasn't one of
them. When they'd been together in
college, she had barely
mentioned her parents, but he had always gotten the impression they were close.
She'd never let him see how close, but she'd always been a little secretive.
"I'm sorry."

"I'd been working for Family Services in Shreveport, but I
quit my job to come home and take care of her." She shifted away from the
door, sitting forward so that her hair hid her face. "Marc called a few
weeks ago when he'd found out that Mama had passed on. We talked on the phone
first, and then Remy convinced me to meet him. I was pretty nervous, with him
running for governor and all, but he didn't care about that." Her voice
warmed a little. "He was so nice and kind, and interested in me. We hit it
off right away."

Images began filling his head—Marc, with Sable. Marc, with his
hands on Sable. Touching her. Kissing her. On top of watching Gantry do the
same. He gripped the steering wheel until cracking sounds came from the hard
plastic cover. "So you were involved with him."

"Not really. Today was only the second time we'd met."
She looked down at her hands. "I mean, we would have met."

"Must have been one hell of a one-night stand." J. D.
wanted to put his fist through the windshield. "Or was it love at first
sight?"

Somehow Isabel had gotten away from Billy at the hospital, but he
knew where she'd likely run to. The old man still lived in the same shack where
her mother had sold bait—just down the road from Gantry's outfit.

And wasn't that the height of convenience.

Billy figured he'd square things with Caine first, then do the
girl. His luck only improved when he crept through the brush to have a look at
the pier and saw Isabel standing there, just as bold as brass, quarreling with
his boss in front of the entire crew.

"There you are." He shifted position, moving forward and
crouching down behind a tangled bush for better cover. "You looking for
me, you little rabbit? Here I am."

He listened to her run her mouth, and when she mentioned his name
his head started to pound. From what she said, Isabel had seen his face, and
she knew he'd been the one to set the fire.

For that, the prying bitch was going to die slowly.

Caine, on the other hand, surprised him. He could have told her
everything, but all he said was that he'd fired him. Maybe Billy had been wrong
about him. Maybe his boss had finally remembered what was important out
here—loyalty to your own kind, over and above everything else.

"'Bout time." Billy aimed for the girl, but Caine moved
between him and Isabel. "Now just get your big ass on out the way."

For the first time since that morning he started to feel better.
When this was over, he could probably patch things up between him and Caine.
Have themselves a sit-down and hash out their differences. All Billy had been
doing was what Caine had wanted him to do. He'd gotten a little sloppy this
time, but that would change. He'd have plenty of money now. Hell, he might even
invest some of his money in the business.

"Gantry and Tibbideau," he muttered, trying it on for
size. "Huh. Tibbideau and Gantry sounds better."

Billy was feeling so good that he didn't see the cop until he had
his weapon out and pointed at Caine. His euphoria abruptly disappeared, and he
lifted his shotgun, trying to get a clear shot at the cop. The cagey son of a
bitch stuck to the shadows, making it nearly impossible to see him. By the time
Billy thought to switch his sights to Isabel, she'd already disappeared into
the dark with the cop. He heard a car engine start a short time later.

"We'll do everything we can to recover your vehicle,
sir," Terri Vincent told the fuming old man when she'd finished
interviewing him. From his excellent description, it appeared that their
missing witness had indeed stolen his car. "You get some rest now and take
care of that hand."

"I'm gonna go home and shoot that durn dog that bit me, is
what," he promised her. "You catch up with that gal that took my
Chevy, you toss her in the hoosegow, you hear? And throw away the keys!"

He had no idea how much she was tempted to do just that.
"Yes, sir."

Since Terri had already interviewed the doctor who had treated
Sable Duchesne, and the semihysterical nurse who had discovered the body of the
X-ray technician, she left Mercy Hospital and drove over to the county
coroner's office on Tulane Avenue. Although the building was closed to the
public for the evening, a security guard let her in through the official
business entrance and showed her back to the morgue.

Terri hated the morgue. She had to breathe through her nose so she
wouldn't smell the stink of death and the chemicals used to preserve it. She
didn't mind the man who ran it, though. "Hey, Doc."

Grayson Huitt looked up from the long incision he was making down
the center torso of a middle-aged woman. His handsome grin appeared behind the
transparent shield protecting his face. "Detective Vincent." He
always said it the way he would
Pamela Anderson.
"Long time, no
bodies. What brings you to my side of town?"

"No deliveries tonight, Gray, just some questions." She
nodded toward his dissection table. "Can you spare me a minute?"

Grayson flipped up his face visor, revealing his classic
Californian-surfer good looks, framed by plenty of shaggy, sun-bleached blond
hair. His grin widened. "You mean, you're finally going to ask me to have
dinner and gratuitous sex with you?"

"Not on a work night, Doc. Catch me during the weekend."
The smell of formalin made her cough. "And can we do it in your office,
please?"

"You cops are such wimps." He turned his head and
bellowed, "Lawrence?" A bearded, pudgy technician ducked his head
around the door to look in at them. "Take over with Ms. Maynard for me, if
you would."

Grayson stripped off his gown and gloves, lightly washed at a sink
near the table, then showed Terri into his office. As soon as he closed the
door, she sighed with relief. "Want some coffee?" He had on a
Springsteen concert T-shirt and well-worn blue jeans, both of which hugged his
nicely built frame in all the best places. "I just made some a little bit
ago. Yama Mama Java, imported from someplace hot and exotic."

"I'm coffeed out, thanks." She pressed a hand to what
was already churning in her stomach in emphasis.

He sat down behind his desk and shoved a stack of
reports
and a container with what appeared to be an eyeball floating in it to one side.
"So if I'm not having sex with you on my desk—the offer of which will
remain open indefinitely, by the way—what else can I help you with
tonight?"

She tried not to stare at the eyeball. "Gray, how soon can
you do the autopsy on Marc LeClare?"

"I did that one soon as I came in. Orders from up the line. I
was just going to call in the report. Sit, sit." As she dropped into the
chair in front of his desk, he shuffled through a stack of charts in his out
box before pulling one and opening it. "Marcus Aurelius LeClare,
forty-seven years old, the wife identified him by a birthmark on his hip.
Ticked me off—I planned to vote for the guy." He looked up. "What do
you need to know?"

"Pretty much everything."

"Well, let's see. Body came in with a bunch of debris, traces
of wood ash, drywall, and fragmented glass adherent to the body—that's likely
from the scene. Global charring with complete burning of flesh from multiple
sites, extensive tissue destruction of the head, upper torso, and extremities."

"So he burned to death."

"Ah, no. Further examination revealed cranial fractures to
the occipital bone—wound area basically covered most of the posterior of the
head. Massive subdural hematoma, comminuted fractures of the occipital bone,
fragments lodged within the cerebral tissue, the works."

The medical jargon confused her. "Which translates to?"

"Somebody bashed Mr. LeClare repeatedly over the back of the
head until his brain imploded and he expired. Take a look for yourself."
He showed her an
autopsy photo of the back of Marc LeClare's head, from which the
scalp had been peeled back to expose the pulverized brain.

"Jesus."

"Mary
and
Joseph," he agreed. "Depth of
penetration indicates the injuries resulted from multiple blows delivered at a
ninety-degree angle from behind the victim. From the fractures of the front of
the face, I'd say the killer hit him once while he was standing, then went to
town when he hit the floor. I checked the lungs, but there was no sign of smoke
inhalation." He replaced the photo. "Official cause of death is
blunt-force traumatic injury, not burning."

Terri rubbed her tired eyes. "So someone bashed his head in,
and then set fire to the place."

"Probably. Can't give you a time of death until
tomorrow." He grimaced. "No question that it was a homicide,
though."

She tried to think of what else he could tell her, but finally had
to settle for, "Did you find anything strange?"

He considered that. "Now that you mention it, there was
something." He flipped through the chart, stopped, and read for a minute.
"Right—I pulled a half dozen wood splinters out of his brain, and sent
them over to SDIC for analysis. Don't quote me, but they looked like
pine."

"Could he have picked them up from the floor?"

Gray shook his head. "Too deep and wrong side of the head. He
went down face-first."

"So they came from the murder weapon—which could have been
anything from a baseball bat to a table leg." She brooded. "How big
was it, do you think?"

"Judging by the wounds, about the size of a
baseball
bat, maybe a little narrower in width." Grayson closed the chart.
"How long did the fire burn?"

"I don't know, maybe thirty, forty-five minutes. They were
able to put it out, but the building was destroyed." She saw the change in
his expression. "What?"

He tapped a finger against his mouth. "Whatever was used to
bludgeon this guy to death was probably heavy and pretty thick. If the killer
dropped it at the scene, it might have burned slower than the body. Could still
be some evidence left behind."