by Julie Kenner
It hadn’t. She’d convinced herself that Remy and Tristan couldn’t be involved in Sally’s presumed death, but Remy had every reason to hate Chad.
“He’s looking for his brother,” she said firmly. “That’s all that matters to him right now.”
“I hope you’re right, because Chad isn’t anywhere I can find him, and there are just a few too many people missing for my comfort.”
“All I can tell you is that Remy went into the swamp. If I knew where, I’d be with him right now.”
“That I can well believe.” Landry favored her with a wry smile and glanced down the path. “It will be to Remy’s advantage if I can—” He stopped, tilted his head and frowned. “I have a call, Doctor. I strongly advise you to go home and wait. I’ll be in touch.”
Without another word he returned the way he had come. Dana waited a few minutes and followed him down the path. She heard the distant growl of a car’s engine and then only the natural sounds of early morning.
She suspected that Detective Landry had been distracted from his pursuit of Remy, which was all to the good. But she faced the same dilemma as before: stuck here like some nineteenth-century soldier’s wife waiting for her man to come home.
Waiting around simply wasn’t in her nature. She ran back into the cabin, retrieved her pack and took the path away from the houseboat. Of course, there was no sign of Remy’s passage; she doubted that even a skilled wildlife tracker could follow him.
Only a little way, she told herself. It’s better than doing nothing. She knew she could get as far as the place Chad had left her that first day, where Remy had rescued her. Perhaps, if she were very lucky, some other clue might come to her by then.
Half a mile into her trek she stumbled upon a minor miracle. Someone had neatly tied a bit of red cloth to a branch at the point where the path dwindled into several narrow tracks. It might have been some other hiker who’d left the sign, but there weren’t many intruders near Arceneaux land. Remy certainly wouldn’t have left them for her to follow.
Tristan might. He trusted her, and she was prepared to grasp at even the most fragile hope. She took the indicated track.
It wasn’t an easy way. Soon Dana gave up brushing leaves and twigs from her hair and clothing, focusing all attention on finding the next marker. She discovered it draped from the upright, broken branch of a rotting log.
Someone had left these markers, and it wasn’t Remy. Tristan had been back to the houseboat; surely he’d left them deliberately. And that meant he wanted to be found.
Dana offered up a prayer and broke into a run.
No one, to Remy’s knowledge, had ever compared the speed of a true wolf to that of a loup-garou. But Remy ran faster than he ever had in his life, racing into the swamp with ears pricked and nose alert for the trail he must find.
It led him to the edge of a nameless pond where Tristan’s bare feet had sunk into the mud. That was where he found the strip of red cloth. Remy paused only to confirm that it belonged to Tristan, and then he leaped across the water and settled into a tireless lope. He remembered the way; he had come this path five years ago, when he had found Tristan whispering words of death.
Sally’s death. A murder left unconfirmed because the body had never been found.
The body. Remy redoubled his pace, paws flying over the ground from ridge to slough and over the next rise. He knew, with a certainty deeper than logic, where Tristan had gone, and why.
Tristan knew where to find the body.
Tris didn’t kill Sally. He did not. So Remy told himself, over and over again, but the words brought no consolation.
At least Dana is safe.
The rising sun bled pink into the sky above the cypresses, renewing Remy’s urgency. Birds clattered from their sleeping places as he passed, and a gator sank under the surface of the black water with an indignant slap of its tail. The scent he pursued grew stronger, and then overwhelming.
Tristan. And he was not alone.
Remy skidded to a halt behind the last intervening thicket at the edge of a thigh-deep slough. On the opposite bank knelt Tristan with Chad Lacoste behind him, one hand resting on Tris’s shoulder with brotherly solicitude. At Tristan’s feet, beside a waterlogged stump, lay the skeletal remains of a human being.
Wisps of rotted cloth and rope still dripped from the bones, but it wasn’t that which caught Remy’s attention. Tangled among the cervical vertebrae near the skull was a chain, discolored from its long tenure under the water. Hung from the chain was a silver ring set with a stone that still, after all these years, swallowed the dim light and sparkled like sweet memories.
Maman’s ring, given to Tris on his eighteenth birthday, just before she died. He had put it on a necklace and never taken it off…until around the time Sally vanished. He’d said he didn’t know how or where he had lost it.
Now Sally’s corpse, what remained of it, wore the necklace in silent accusation. Tears ran down Tristan’s face, though he made no sound. He lifted his hand as if to reach for the pendant. His fingers trembled.
“What more proof do you need?” Chad asked with nauseating gentleness. “You knew exactly where to find the body. How could you know that, Tristan, unless you were here when Sally died?”
A howl of rage built in Remy’s throat, but he swallowed it back. Wait. Listen. Chad had tried to kill Remy; he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt Tristan as well if he were provoked. It wasn’t an accident that he was here. Either he’d followed Tris or come to this place on his own. What happened in the next few minutes might solve all the mysteries and set Tris free.
Or it might condemn him utterly.
“You’ll feel so much better when you admit it, Tristan,” Chad said. “You loved Sally. So did I. You owe it to her to tell the truth.”
Tristan squeezed his eyes shut. “I…don’t remember.”
“You don’t want to remember. I understand. But things will never be right until you clear your conscience.” Chad leaned closer, patting Tristan’s arm. “It’s so simple. All you have to do is turn yourself in. I’ll make sure you get a fair hearing. I know a few good doctors who might even be able to get you a lighter sentence. After all, you couldn’t have known what you were doing, could you?”
“Please,” Tristan whispered.
Remy gathered his haunches for a leap. His muscles screamed with the need to launch himself at Chad, take him by the throat, choke and rend and tear—
“Let me help you,” Chad murmured. “You had an argument with Sally. You used your hunting knife to kill her, didn’t you? You were afraid someone would find the body, so you wedged Sally under this sunken log and tied her up with rope so the bones wouldn’t fall apart or be moved by the current.”
Submerged. Remy ground his teeth. That was why he’d never been able to find the body; the scent had been masked by water. A werewolf might think of such a precaution.
“You made yourself forget,” Chad went on. “Until today. Then you came here, because in your heart you knew it had to end once and for all. You brought Sally up into the light.”
“I…found her.”
“And you can’t hide it anymore. Everyone in Grand Marais saw you wearing that ring constantly after graduation. I saw it around Sally’s neck the day before she died—you gave it to her. And here it is.”
“Yes,” Tristan wept. “Yes.”
With a roar, Remy crashed out of the thicket and spanned the slough in a single jump. Chad’s expression went blank, and then he staggered back with a hoarse cry and fell on his rump.
Remy pinned him down, legs straddled over Chad’s rigid body. Chad squeaked and closed his eyes against the sight of teeth mere inches from his throat. Through the haze of his anger, Remy realized that Tris hadn’t even looked in their direction.
Tris’s sanity was a thousand times more important than any dream of vengeance. Remy backed away, warning Chad with a growl, and Changed.
Remy didn’t bother to gauge Chad’s reaction; simple shock wou
ld keep the man quiet for a few minutes, at least. Turning his back on his enemy, Remy crouched beside Tristan and took him by the shoulders.
“Tris, can you hear me? Look at me, ’tit frère.”
No flicker of recognition came back into Tristan’s eyes. He drew his knees up to his chest and began to rock forward and back like a disconsolate child.
“I remember,” he said. “I found Sally. I did it.”
“No.” He pulled Tris against him. “No, Tris.”
“What more proof do you want?” Chad rasped. He lay with his back against a cypress trunk, arms braced at his sides, body racked with tremors. “You—whatever you are—” He laughed. “Is that why you’re not in a hospital? You’re not even human?”
Remy stared at Chad over Tristan’s head. “You’ll be lucky to make it to a hospital.”
“You’d rather kill me than face the truth, is that it? You just heard your brother admit to his crime. Of course, that probably doesn’t mean anything to a monster like you.” He shook his head. “It makes perfect sense. I’m surprised your brother used a knife instead of his teeth.”
“Liar. You did this to him. You made him believe it.”
“Did I? If you were so sure of his innocence, why did you leave me alone all these years?” His laughter took on the edge of hysteria. “Or is it because you have other secrets to hide?”
Remy was frankly amazed that Chad’s reason had been so unaffected by what he’d witnessed. He smelled of fear, and yet he hadn’t panicked. That stubborn grip on rationality made him all the more dangerous. There was only one way to silence Lacoste, keep him from destroying Tristan and exposing the Arceneaux heritage.
“Are you going to kill me?” Chad demanded. “Yes, that’s right. Tear me apart with your bare hands.” He leaned back against the tree trunk and plunged his fingers into the damp earth, laughing until tears ran down his face. “You’re a natural-born killer, just like your brother.”
“You’re wrong, Chad.”
Dana stood at the opposite bank, breathing hard, her hair a mat of tangles and her clothes dirty and torn. “Remy’s not a murderer,” she said. “And neither is Tristan.”
Remy’s first inclination was to curse Dana’s mule-headedness and whatever skill or luck had brought her here. But when he met her gaze across the water, his treacherous heart knotted with relief and gratitude. He let his eyes speak for him.
“Come and join our little party, Dr. St. Cyr,” Chad said. “Though I really don’t think you’re dressed—or is that undressed?—for the occasion.”
In a handful of seconds Remy stood over Chad, hands poised to strike. Dana waded through the slough as coolly as a model gliding down a runway.
“You’re not sinking to his level, Remy,” she said. “I know you too well.” She regarded Chad with a look of open loathing. “I presume that he knows what you are…. I wish I could have seen his face when he found-out. How is Tristan?”
“He doesn’t recognize one. He may be in shock.”
“And I may have a way of reaching him.”
“Dana—”
“Trust me.” She gazed down upon Chad like an ancient goddess preparing to pass judgment. “I know you tried to kill Remy last night. Did you come straight here afterward, to make sure the body was still hidden?”
“Dana, Dana,” Chad said, clucking sadly. “You know about the Arceneaux brothers, and yet you can make such accusations? I assure you that when I arrived, Tristan had already exhumed the body. What does that suggest to you?”
“You knew exactly where to come. Or was it coincidence that you happened to meet Tris in this very spot, especially considering your tendency to get lost in the swamp?” She sighed with an air of much-tried patience. “I think you knew where Sally was all the time. You loved her, and she rejected you—”
“As you have, ma chèrie.” He pointed at Remy. “For that.”
Dana touched Remy’s arm, and an electric charge of inopportune desire shot through him. “You aren’t half the man—or beast—Remy is,” she said, “but you may be the worst that humanity has to offer.”
“Perhaps you didn’t hear Tristan’s confession.”
“A forced confession,” Remy snarled. “You twisted his mind, fils de putain.”
“If I were you, Chad,” Dana said, “I’d start telling the truth. I’m not sure I can control Remy if he decides to kill you.”
Chapter 13
Remy almost laughed at her air of aloof nonchalance. It might even have convinced him if he hadn’t smelled the anxiety she hid so well. He bared his teeth at Chad and pulled against Dana’s restraining hand like an attack dog on a cheap chain.
Chad shrank back against the tree. “You can be a party to my murder, Dana, but everything you care about will die with me.”
“That remains to be seen.” She turned her back on Chad and knelt before Tristan. “Tristan, look at me.”
“He can’t help you,” Remy said to Dana, gripping her elbow. “He doesn’t even hear us. You have to get him out of here. Leave Lacoste to me.”
“That’s the last thing I can do. Trust me, Remy. Please. What date, day of the week and month did Sally disappear?”
Remy knew that everything hung upon his decision—to let another person hold Tris’s welfare in her hands, or take an irrevocable step that would save Tris’s life, and perhaps his sanity, at the expense of his soul. And his own soul, as well.
Remy is not a murderer, Dana had said with all the courage and conviction he had come to admire. She believed in him. Now he had to believe in her.
He let out a harsh breath. “It was a Wednesday. September sixteenth.”
Dana nodded and grasped Tristan’s shoulders, compelling the younger man’s undivided attention. “Tristan,” she said gently, “this is Sally. Sally Daigle. Today is Wednesday, September sixteenth, and it’s time for us to find the truth.”
She knew her guess was right when Tristan’s blank stare began to change. The fear in his eyes receded, along with the horror of memories he could not face. In their place was a calm pleasure, as if he had just discovered a rare flower growing out of the muck.
“Sally,” he said. “I’m glad to see you.”
“I know.” She took his hands and knelt, drawing him down with her. “Do you remember why we came out to the swamp today?”
“To look for your special bird, the one I’ve seen in this area. I said I’d guide you to find it.”
“That’s right. We came out here together. We were alone.”
“Yes.” He ducked his head shyly. “Do you still have the ring I gave you?”
He must mean the pendant lying among Sally’s bones. Dana had noticed it immediately, and the reminder chilled her to the core. “Yes, Tristan. I still have it. You gave it to me here, in the swamp. But something happened, didn’t it? Something we didn’t intend.”
His eyes lost their confidence, but he was not yet frightened. “I didn’t want to leave you even for a minute,” he said. “But I thought I knew where to find your bird in a place you couldn’t reach. I wanted to capture it for you, as a gift.”
“So you left me alone. But I wasn’t afraid.”
“No. You were never afraid. But while I was gone, I heard voices. It sounded like fighting. Someone was with you. I came back.” His face lost its color. “No. Sally. No.”
“It’s all right,” Dana said. “Who was with Sally—with me—that day? What did you see?”
“You were lying on the ground,” he said in a monotone. “You didn’t move. He was with you. He had something…something—”
“Who was it, Tris?” Remy broke in, staring at Chad. “Who killed her?”
Tristan shook his head wildly. “He ran away. I tried to help her. Too late.” A tear spilled from under his eyelid. “I left her alone. All alone.”
“That’s how I found him,” Remy said, his face rigid with suppressed emotion. “He had Changed, and his memory was affected.”
Dana took Tristan�
�s face between her hands. “You’re remembering now,” she told him. “It’s almost over, if you can be brave a little longer. For Sally’s sake.”
The haze in his eyes cleared, and Dana knew he recognized her for who she was. The vulnerable, childlike lines of his face took on a new definition, a firm maturity—a change just as startling as that of man into wolf.
“For Sally,” he whispered. “I forgot so much. But when I met you, it started coming back. I knew where Sally’s body was hidden. I didn’t know if I put her here, but when I found the body where I expected it to be, I thought it meant I’d…Dieu.”
“Go back to that day five years ago, Tris. Try to remember.”
“I couldn’t think when I saw her lying there. The man with her—”
“Was it Chad?” Remy demanded.
Tristan wouldn’t look at him. “I hid until he came back. I saw him tie Sally to the log and push it under the water. He took the ring—the chain I’d given her—”
“Damn you, Lacoste,” Remy said quietly. “I should have killed you.”
Tristan gave Chad no chance to reply. “I didn’t think,” he said. “I Changed and went after him. He was so afraid he dropped the knife—”
Tristan shot to his feet and ran in a tight circle on the bank, like a bloodhound pursuing a scent. He darted to the nearest hollow cypress stump, running his hands over the rough bark. He dashed to a second tree, and a third, searching every nearby stump with frantic purpose.
Out of the corner of her eye Dana saw Chad climbing to his feet. Remy slammed Lacoste against the tree, fell intent in every line of his body.
“Remy,” she said. “Don’t—”
She forgot her warning as soon as it left her mouth. Tristan had plunged, legs first, into the deep hollow of a cypress stump. From within she could hear the rustling of leaves and the echoing thumps of Tristan’s body striking rotted wood. He emerged from the tree with a bundle in his hands and jumped nimbly to the ground.
“I remember,” he said. He placed the bundle almost reverently on a patch of dry ground near Dana’s feet and knelt beside it.