by Sandra Brown
Now the place was in shambles, and he had nothing to show for his ransacking.
Dead end.
Which more or less summarized the life and times of Lee Coburn, who would leave the world with seven brutal murders as his only legacy. Seven victims who hadn’t been given a chance, who’d died before they knew what had hit them.
Swearing beneath his breath, he rubbed his temples. He was tired. No, more than tired. Weary. Weary of loading and unloading those goddamn trucks. Weary of the sad, one-room apartment that he’d been living in for the past thirteen months. Weary of life in general, and of his life in particular. As he’d told Gillette’s widow, if he died, which he probably would soon, he’d be dead, and none of it would matter.
But hell if it didn’t matter now. As he lowered his hands from his forehead, he realized he wasn’t quite ready to let the devil take him.
“Get up.”
She stirred, rolled to her side, and pushed herself into a sitting position. He reached down. She studied his hand for several seconds, then clasped it and let him pull her up.
“What did you mean?”
Her voice was breathless and shaky, but he knew what she was referring to. Instead of addressing the question, he propelled her toward the hallway and then into her bedroom, where he released her hand. Going to the bed, he whipped back the comforter, which had been spotless, but was now stained and grimy because of him.
“I gotta lie down, which means you gotta lie down.”
She stood where she was, looking at him as though she didn’t understand the language.
“Lie down,” he repeated.
She moved to the bed, but stood on the opposite side of it, staring across at him like he was an exotic animal she’d never seen before. She wasn’t acting right. All day long, he’d been studying her reactions to things he said and did, so that he would know what her weaknesses were and what fears he could tap into in order to manipulate her.
He’d seen her terrified, supplicant, desperate, and even pissed off. But this was a new expression, and he didn’t know what to make of it. Maybe she’d banged her head on the floor when she was fighting for control of the pistol.
“What you said about Eddie…” She paused to swallow. “What did you mean?”
“What did I say? I don’t remember.”
“You said that the thing you’re after had got him killed.”
“I never said that.”
“That’s exactly what you said.”
“You must’ve heard me wrong.”
“I didn’t hear you wrong!”
Well, good. She was acting normal again, not like a zombie had taken over her body. Her compact, shapely body that had felt real good against his.
“Eddie’s death was an accident,” she declared.
“If you say so.” He turned away and started rifling through the heap of clothes he’d removed from her bureau drawers earlier as he’d searched them.
He sensed her approach only a heartbeat before she grabbed him by the arm and brought him around to face her. He allowed it. She wasn’t going to stop with this until she got an explanation. Not unless he gagged her, and he really didn’t want to do that unless she forced him to.
“What did you come here to find?”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me, damn you!
“I don’t know!”
He pulled his arm free and bent down to pick up a pair of stockings. Sheer, black stockings. When he turned back to her, she searched his eyes.
“You honestly don’t know?” she asked.
“What part of ‘I don’t know’ don’t you understand?”
He reached for her hand and began wrapping the stocking around her wrist. She didn’t resist. In fact, she seemed oblivious to what he was doing.
“If there’s anything about Eddie or how he died that you can tell me… Please,” she said. “Surely you can understand why I want to know.”
“Actually I don’t. He’ll stay dead. So what difference does it make?”
“It makes a huge difference. If his death wasn’t an accident, as you imply, I’d like to know why he died and who was responsible.” She placed her hand over his. He stopped winding the stocking around her wrist. “Please.”
Her eyes were various shades of green that were constantly changing. He’d noticed that the first thing, when they’d been out in the yard and he’d thrust the barrel of the pistol into her belly. Then her eyes had gone wide with fear. He’d seen them spark with anger. Now they glistened with unshed tears. And, always, those shifting hues.
He looked down at their joined hands. She lifted hers off his, but didn’t break eye contact. “You don’t think Eddie’s car crash was an accident?”
He hesitated, then shook his head.
She breathed through her lips. “You think someone caused the crash and made it look like an accident?”
He didn’t say anything.
Her tongue swept across her lips. “He was killed because of something he had?”
He nodded. “That someone else wanted.”
“Something valuable?”
“The people who wanted it thought so.”
He watched the play of emotions in her face as she digested that. Then her gaze refocused on him. “Valuable to you?”
He gave a brusque nod.
“Like cash?”
“Possibly. But I don’t think so. More like the combination to a lock. Account number in a Cayman Islands bank. Something like that.”
She shook her head with perplexity. “Eddie wouldn’t have had anything like that. Unless he was holding it for evidence.”
“Or…”
His insinuation finally sank in and she recoiled from it. “Eddie wasn’t party to any criminal activity. Surely that’s not what you’re suggesting.”
He snuffled a laugh. “No, of course not.”
“Eddie was as honest as the day is long.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But he got crosswise with the wrong person.”
“Who?”
“The Bookkeeper.”
“Who?”
“Did Eddie know Sam Marset?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Why ‘of course’?”
“Before we got married, Eddie moonlighted by working as a security guard for Mr. Marset.”
“At the warehouse?”
“The whole compound.”
“For how long?”
“Several months. They’d had a few break-ins, minor vandalism, so Mr. Marset hired Eddie to patrol at night. The break-ins stopped. Nevertheless, Mr. Marset liked the peace of mind that having a guard provided. But Eddie declined his offer of a permanent position.” She smiled faintly. “He wanted to be a cop.”
“How well did you know him?”
“Sam Marset? Only casually. He was an elder at our church. He and I served one term together on the Historical Preservation Society.”
“Church elder, historical society, my ass,” he snorted. “He was a greedy, unscrupulous son of a bitch.”
“Who deserved to be shot in the head.”
He raised one shoulder. “Quick and painless.”
The statement and his matter-of-fact tone seemed to repel her. She tried to back away from him, only then realizing that her wrist was bound.
Honor’s head began to swim as she clawed at the stocking around her wrist. “Take this off me. Take it off!”
He grabbed the hand frantically trying to unwind the stocking and began wrapping the other stocking around that wrist. “No. No!” She batted at his hands, then at his face with her free hand.
He dodged her flailing hand. Swearing, he pushed her back onto the bed and was on her in a heartbeat. His knee held down her left arm while he quickly tied her right hand to the iron headboard.
Only the fear of awakening Emily kept her from screaming bloody murder. “Let me go!”
He didn’t. He ha
uled her left hand up and wrapped the end of the stocking around one of the curved iron rails, ruthlessly knotting it. Frantically she tugged on the bindings. Panic had her gasping. “Please. I’m claustrophobic.”
“I don’t give a shit.” He came off the bed and stood looking down at her, breathing hard from exertion.
“Untie me!”
He not only ignored the demand, he left the room.
She bit down hard on her lower lip to keep from screaming. He’d left about six inches of give on each hand, permitting the backs of her hands to lie against the pillow beside her head, but the slack didn’t lessen her feeling of entrapment. Overwhelmed by panic, she renewed her effort to get free.
But soon it became apparent that her attempts were futile and that she was only wasting her strength. She forced herself to stop struggling and to take deep, calming breaths. But reason had never succeeded in ridding her of claustrophobia, and it didn’t now. It only ameliorated it enough for her to slow down her heart rate and respiration to levels that weren’t life-threatening.
She could hear Coburn moving through the house. She supposed he was checking the locks on doors and windows. The irony of that caused a bubble of hysterical laughter to escape her before she could catch it.
The hallway light went out. Coburn reentered the bedroom.
She made herself lie still and to speak as evenly as possible. “I’ll go crazy. Really. I will. I can’t stand it.”
“You don’t have a choice. Besides, you’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”
“Just untie me and I promise—”
“No. I’ve got to sleep. You’ve got to lie here beside me.”
“I will.”
He shot her a skeptical look.
“I swear.”
“We had a deal. You welshed on it. Twice. And almost shot one of us in the process.”
“I’ll lie here and not move. I promise I won’t do anything. Okay?”
Their recent tussle had reopened his scalp wound. A thin trickle of blood slid down his temple. He swiped at it, then looked at the red streaks on his fingers before wiping them on the leg of his jeans. Eddie’s jeans.
“Did you hear me?”
“I’m not deaf.”
“I won’t try to get away. I swear. Just untie my hands.”
“Sorry, lady. You blew what trust I had in you, and I didn’t have any to start with. Now lie still and be quiet or I’ll stuff something into your mouth and then you really will feel claustrophobic.”
He set the pistol on the nightstand, then switched off the lamp.
“We have to keep a light on,” she said, keeping her voice low. The thought of a gag terrified her. “Emily is afraid of the dark. If she wakes up and the light isn’t on, she’ll get scared and start crying. She’ll come looking for me. Please. I don’t want her to see me like this.”
He hesitated, then turned away. Her eyes followed his dark form as he went into the hallway and switched on the overhead light. His silhouette showed up large and menacing as he came back into the bedroom.
He seemed even more menacing when he lay down on his back inches from her. She hadn’t been in bed with anyone since Eddie. Emily, of course. But Emily’s forty pounds hardly made an impression in the mattress. She didn’t rock the bed when she climbed onto it or create a decline, which caused Honor to focus on keeping to her side rather than rolling against him.
The motions and sounds of his settling down beside her harkened back to the familiar, yet it felt strange. This man lying close to her wasn’t Eddie. His breathing was different. His sheer presence felt different from Eddie’s.
And somehow not touching seemed more intimate than if they were.
Once he was settled comfortably, he didn’t stir. From the corner of her eye, she looked over to see that he’d closed his eyes. His fingers were loosely clasped and resting on his abdomen.
She lay as straight, still, and stiff as a plank, trying to talk herself out of having a full-blown panic attack. She was bound and unable to get free, true. But, she told herself sternly, she wasn’t in mortal danger. She counted her heartbeats in order to keep the rate of them under control. She made each breath long and deep.
But these exercises worked no better than reason.
Her anxiety continued to mount until she began pulling against the bindings, straining against them with as much effort as she could muster.
“You’re only making them tighter,” he said.
“Undo them.”
“Go to sleep.”
A sob burbled out of her and she started jerking at the bindings until the headboard banged rhythmically against the wall.
“Stop that!”
“I can’t. I told you I couldn’t stand it, and I can’t.”
She began to pull so viciously against the stockings that the recoil caused the backs of her hands to rap painfully against the iron rails of the headboard. The pain caused her panic to rise until she was bucking like someone demented. Her legs bicycled as though trying to outrun the feeling of suffocation. Her heels pushed hard against the mattress. Her head thrashed from side to side on the pillow.
“Shh, shh. Calm down. You’re okay. Shh.”
Realization came to her gradually. Coburn was leaning over her. He was holding one of her hands in each of his, his thumbs planted solidly in her palms. His voice was a soothing whisper.
“Shh.” His thumbs began massaging small circles into her palms. “Take deep breaths. You’ll be fine.”
But she didn’t breathe deeply. Following one stuttering exhale, she didn’t breathe at all. And when he angled his head back to look down into her face, he stopped breathing too.
His face was close to hers, close enough that she could see his eyes as they looked down at her mouth, then at her chest, making her achingly aware of her breasts. Not even the semi-darkness could dim the blue intensity of his eyes when they reconnected with hers.
In order to stop her convulsing, he’d placed his leg across her thighs. His lap was pressed against her hip. His arousal was unmistakable. And Honor knew that her perfect stillness was a giveaway that she felt it.
It seemed like an eternity that they lay there, frozen in that position, but it was probably only a few seconds. Then he swore viciously as he released her hands and rolled off her. He lay as before on his back, close but not touching. Only now he placed one forearm across his eyes.
“Don’t pull another stunt like that.”
It hadn’t been a stunt, but she didn’t refute him. He hadn’t specified what her punishment would be if she freaked out again. But the gruffness in his voice warned her against testing him.
Chapter 13
One hour shy of daylight the boat belonging to Arleeta Thibadoux was discovered. It appeared to have been dragged into a grove of cypress trees for concealment.
Two deputy sheriffs had been poling their way through the swamp when one of them spotted it with his high-powered light. He and his partner used their cell phones to spread the word, and within half an hour of the discovery, two dozen exhausted but exhilarated law enforcement officers had converged on the site.
Fred Hawkins, who’d been at the police station in downtown Tambour when he got word, was able to get fairly close to the site in the helicopter on loan from N.O.P.D. As soon as the chopper set down, he was picked up in a small motorboat by fellow officers, who conveyed him the rest of the way. Doral was already at the scene when he arrived.
“It took on water,” Doral told him, getting straight to the point. He aimed his flashlight into the partially submerged hull. “At least we have a new starting point.”
“We don’t know for certain it’s Coburn.”
“It’s either him or a bizarre coincidence.” Doral used the beam of the flashlight to spot the blood smears on the oar. “Still bleeding from somewhere. The hell of it is…”
He didn’t finish, but used the flashlight to cut a swath across the surrounding landscape. It was a monotonous, gray, desolate
wilderness with nothing to distinguish one square yard of it from another except for whatever form of deadly wildlife might be lurking within its deceptive placidity.
“Yeah.” Fred sighed, catching his brother’s drift. “But as you said, it gives us a fresh start.”
“You’d better call it in.”
“Right.” Fred made the call.
Over the next half hour, more officers arrived, were briefed, and then dispatched to cover new territory. The FBI agents from Tom VanAllen’s office were alerted. “Get word to Tom,” Fred told them. “He needs to know about this immediately. I may need to call on the feds for reinforcement. They’ve got better toys than we do.”
As he lit a cigarette, Doral pulled Fred aside. “What about Stan? Should I call him, get him to round up some of yesterday’s volunteers to pitch in?”
Fred consulted the eastern horizon, or what he could see of it through the dense cypress grove. “Let’s wait till after daylight. Stan knows more about stalking than you and I have forgot. But some of those other boys would be more harm than help.”
Doral exhaled a plume of smoke. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, brother. You don’t want a bunch of volunteers in this posse any more than you want all these extra badges. Or the feds. You don’t want anybody to tree Lee Coburn but your own self.”
Fred grinned. “You always could read me like a book.”
“ ’Cause we think alike.”
They rejoined the others. Maps were consulted. Waterways, which formed intricate loops, were assigned to be explored. “Coburn will be needing drinking water,” Fred reminded the group. Since the oil spill, no right-minded individual would drink water from any of these channels. “Anybody know of any fishing cabins, camps, shacks, sheds, anything like that in this general vicinity? Anyplace he could find potable water?”
Several possibilities were mentioned. Men were sent to check them out. “Approach with caution,” Fred warned them as they set off in the small boats they’d been trolling in all night. “Cut your engines before you get close.”
Doral volunteered to take the road less traveled, and Fred let him. “If anybody can slog through that area without getting lost, you can. Keep your phone handy, and I’ll do the same. You see anything, call me first.”