The phone call. Emma shivered and jumped into her SUV. She locked the doors and sighed with relief when the garage door behind her swung open.
What if the call had been to find out if she was there, then an intruder had sneaked inside somehow and gone into the garage to make sure she couldn’t get away quickly? He would have had time to get to her by now—unless he planned to follow her into the garage but had heard her put on the alarm and was waiting for her to leave so he could escape unseen. Or he could be “just” a burglar….
Emma wasn’t sticking around to check for killers and thieves inside the house.
She put her foot to the floor and shot out into a hot, black night. Thrown back and forth by her own jerky foot on the brake and the gas, her already aching head throbbed. Only a few houses stood in this section of the golfing community—mostly because the lots were huge and the homes outrageously large. There were no streetlights. The residents provided their own illumination, and that left long dark stretches between properties.
Nothing moved, or nothing that Emma saw. At the rate of speed she traveled, everything became blurred.
A route through town would be safest.
Should she call Billy Meche? Not unless she thought a call, possibly a wrong number, and her own fearful imagination were worthy of a complaint to the law.
The clock on the dash showed midnight had just passed. Her breathing came in short, shallow bursts, and her heart beat so hard she heard it in her ears.
In ten minutes she reached the outskirts of town and slowed down to drive along Main Street. Here there was a lot more light, and she drove past businesses and offices she had known all her life.
Two police cars blocked off civilian vehicles parked outside Buzzard’s Wet Bar. Several people were rolling around on the ground, while the cops leaned on their cars, waiting for a break in the action to take the brawlers in.
A neon pig flashed atop the butcher’s shop. Dangling strands of white Christmas lights, missing more bulbs than the number alight, flashed in the single window of Kay’s Hand-crafts. By daylight, cobwebs could be seen in the corners of that window.
Emma reached the square and steered around the grassy park in the center. Bars covered the grocery store window, and the establishment was dark inside. Sadie and Sam Moss believed in security. The Moss family had owned the store for several generations. The first proprietors had been Sadie and Sam, and those names were repeated across the windows and the door in gold lettering. The store kept the same name regardless of who was in charge. Coincidence had led a Moss boy—another Sam—to marry a girl named Sadie, back twenty-five or so years ago, and now the name fit the owners once more.
A car pulled to the curb just before the stop sign at the junction of Main and Rice Streets. Emma held her breath. Much farther up Rice, Patrick Damalis had his plush establishment in what resembled a Tudor mansion. The owner lived on the premises and advertised that he could accommodate any event. Patrons came from many miles for wedding receptions, banquets and business meetings. She imagined Pat’s Pack met in a private room somewhere. Patrick’s was the best restaurant in town, would be in most towns. It was incongruous in a place where grits, sausage, three poached eggs and a basket of hot, sweet calas—rice fritters dredged in powdered sugar—was considered as gourmet as a meal needed to be. You went to Ona’s on the next block for that.
The car at the stop sign wasn’t a Mercedes, and the driver wasn’t Orville. The couple in the front seats lip-locked together, and the driver rose over his companion. Emma saw elbows and struggling bodies. He must have put the parking break on.
She drove as fast as she dared, with images whirling through her fevered brain. Orville doing whatever he did in the secretive men’s club people avoided talking about. Denise as she’d been in life, confident and smiling—in death, a grotesque, defiled mannequin. Then she saw the shadows of Finn Duhon’s thick lashes reflected in his eyes, and the way his mouth flipped up at the corners when he smiled—the dimples beside his mouth.
She fiddled with buttons until a Mario Frangoulis CD helped close out the mad rotation of imagined slides. Pointe Judah’s small downtown, with its rows of houses stretching out behind the business area, didn’t take long to leave behind. Nor did a trailer park on a piece of land that bordered Bayou Nespique to the west.
Emma’s folks liked privacy. They’d bought north of town on a winding road where the few people who already lived there had built way back in the trees. Without the trees, negotiating the road in the dark might have been less dangerous. As it was, each turn came up before her headlights picked out a solid wall of trees ahead, indicating a sharp bend.
Just let me get there in one piece. She second-guessed every decision she made now.
At least Emma knew the twists and turns well. She held back on the gas when all she wanted to do was race ahead. The changes in elevation were small, and rose and fell slowly. She came to a T-junction and turned right without slowing down. The trusty Lexus didn’t even begin to fishtail.
On a long, slow, downhill drop, Emma looked in the rearview mirror and came close to missing a left-hand jog. Headlights glared behind her.
Idiot, you’re not the only one on this road.
She punched off the CD player. The distraction muddled her. She negotiated three more turns, and when the road straightened out, the lights were still there—and much closer.
When she accelerated, the other vehicle dropped back, but when she slowed, the lights grew closer.
If she turned off into the next driveway she came to, it would prove whether or not she was being followed.
Gravel kicked up by the front tires pinged on the under-carriage.
She could just drive on to the next town.
Or maybe she could make a dash for home and lock herself inside before he could get to her.
Emma floored the vehicle and shot forward. This stretch of road rose and fell more than most parts, but it was fairly straight.
Trees swung up in front of her when she didn’t expect them. Emma attempted to ease the brake on, but it was too late and the trees too close. She stamped on the brakes, and this time the rear wheels of the Lexus did skate a little on the loose gravel. Just the smallest slide before she had it completely under control again.
She didn’t have to look in the mirror. Headlights broke over her, blazed inside the vehicle. Emma screamed, managed to shut her mouth, but broke into a clammy sweat.
On the straight again, she wrapped her shaking hands around the wheel and prepared for another dash.
The dark-colored predator suddenly swung wide, into the oncoming lane, and traveled beside her. From the corner of her eye, Emma saw a light go on in the cab of the large pickup.
Reluctantly, she made herself look at the other driver.
Finn Duhon? She almost choked. He rolled down his passenger window and indicated for her to open her own.
Emma followed his directions, and she heard Finn’s voice faintly as the wind ripped his words away. “Slow down. You’ll kill yourself.”
She took her foot off the gas, and they both lost speed.
“I was worried about you!” he yelled. “Your husband left you alone, and you shot out of there. I’ll make sure you’re safe where you’re goin’.”
“Get back on the right side of the road,” she shouted, peering ahead. It was his fault she’d driven wildly.
“Okay,” Finn said. “Your parents’ house, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll go first. Maybe that way I can get you there alive.”
He waved, and Emma waved back. Her heart had slowed a little but her head still ached, along with her eyes now.
Before long, Finn made a right turn into the driveway of the Balous’ two-story house.
Emma followed, but slammed on the brakes once she was off the road.
What do I really know about this man?
5
The lady was married.
Finn knew he was on shaky g
round, but it was up to him to keep things friendly and uncomplicated.
So why stake out Emma’s house until Lachance drove off on his own, then call to make sure she was okay, then follow her all the way here?
Because dislike-at-first-sight covered his reaction to Lachance, and he didn’t trust him to be as good to Emma as she deserved? Because Finn wished he had the right to get real close to Emma Lachance, so he was torturing himself? Because the Lachances didn’t look like Mr. And Mrs. American Harmony, and there was nothing wrong with wanting to be around in case the couple quit making apple pies together?
Yes, those were honest reasons, but also, at Billy’s office, dislike had been too weak to describe Finn’s reaction to Lachance. The man had filed the ends off his nerves. Billy could be too used to Mr. Mayor to notice the man’s complex reactions. But some folks responded to snakes the way Finn had to Orville.
Finn had parked directly in front of the Balous’ wraparound gallery and switched off the ignition. A double spotlight, with one bulb burned out, cast a circular beam. Once Emma was in the driveway, she stopped, and he hadn’t taken his eyes off her vehicle since. Her high beams still shone, and when he concentrated, he heard the even hum of the engine.
And why shouldn’t she pause at the idea of being alone with him in a deserted place? Damn, she didn’t know him, and he’d followed her. Right now he would lay odds that he was being tried for murder in that Lexus—maybe even convicted.
He took a chance on getting an earful for waking Billy and dialed his number.
“Meche here.”
“I need you, man,” Finn said. “I’ve followed Emma Lachance up to her parents’ place just to make sure she’s safe—”
Billy interrupted him. “You what? Why would you do a thing like that?”
“Later,” Finn said.
“Where’s her husband?”
“I don’t know. She’s alone. I’m alone. This is plain old neighborly concern, is all.” Liar.
Billy was quiet for an instant. “You’re right, we’ll talk more about this later.”
“Emma knows I’m here now, but she’s locked in her car with the engine runnin’. Wouldn’t you think that could mean she’s afraid of me and about to take off?”
“You know it does, jerk. You got the hots for her?”
Finn took the phone from his ear and looked at it; then he said, “I’d appreciate it if you’d tell the lady she can trust me. She probably intends to spend the night here, and I think I ought to check out the house before she does.”
“Okay. You do that, then get the hell back to your own place. You don’t want to tangle with that husband of hers.”
“Yeah? I won’t take the time now, but I’m goin’ to hound you for more information on that topic. Remember my folks’ house isn’t so far from hers—my house now, I guess. If I was going the other direction, the Balou place would be on my way. Now, I’m going to find a way to get this phone to her.”
“You didn’t come from the other way,” Billy growled. “And you passed your place going to hers.”
Finn didn’t debate the issue. Expecting Emma to flee, he opened his door and left it open while he walked into the blinding glare of her headlights. He held the cell phone out in his left hand and prayed she wouldn’t think it was a gun. He also prayed she didn’t get scared enough to floor the gas and kill him.
Carefully, he placed the phone to his ear again. “I’m walking straight into her headlights. I’m gonna leave the phone on the hood, then get back into my truck. With luck, she’ll pick up the phone.”
“Next time you get an urge to put your life on the line, call me. Got that?”
Finn grinned. “I did this time, didn’t I? Hang on, here we go.” He set the phone on the hood of the Lexus, pointed to it and then to the driver’s window, waved, and returned to the truck.
“Back in the jungle again,” he sang under his breath, aware of his shirt clinging to his skin and a hot, damp wind rustling in the pines around the house—and the unpredictable human behind him. Without warning, the scar on his back knotted and his muscles locked.
This was no jungle in El Salvador, and Emma Lachance was unlikely to attack him with a machete or a big spike meant for staking out an animal.
He slammed his door behind him, and almost instantly her headlights went out. Finn rolled down his window and heard footsteps crunching on gravel. She gave a little laugh and said things he couldn’t hear. It shouldn’t annoy him that while he got no trust, Billy Meche’s words were golden.
He did hear her say, “Bye,” before she arrived and thrust the cell toward him. “Billy wants to say good-night,” she said, and scrunched up her face as if embarrassed.
“Goodnight, Billy,” Finn said. “Thanks for the help.”
In a hoarse whisper Billy said, “One wrong move with Emma and you’re history around here, Duhon.”
“If you say so.”
“Finn!”
“I was an Eagle Scout. Sleep. Tomorrow’s goin’ to be a busy day.”
Billy hung up, and Finn put the phone in his pants pocket. “What’s that puckered-up face for?” he asked Emma.
“I feel silly. I overreacted. If I’d seen what you drove earlier, I might have wondered if it was you in the truck in the first place.”
He jumped out beside her and squashed the impulse to put an arm around her shoulders. “You got cold feet about me. Right?”
“Right.”
“That makes you a smart woman. You don’t know me. Why wouldn’t you worry about my reasons for following you up here? I’m going to come clean about it. I decided to take a run by your place. Don’t ask me why, but I feel kind of responsible for you. Probably something to do with sharing what we did.”
She had turned her face up to his, but her eyes slid away.
“I don’t know why I didn’t keep on drivin’, except your husband hadn’t closed the garage door behind the Mercedes, and I wanted to make sure he wouldn’t leave again.”
Her eyes returned to his, and she frowned.
“When he did—” Finn grimaced “—I tried to go, but in the end I had to call, just to hear your voice so I knew you were okay. Sorry I hung up on you like a kid after Orville bolted out of there.”
She didn’t pick up on the comment about her husband. “Do you think someone wants to hurt me?” she asked.
He should have anticipated the question, but his mind went blank.
“Finn? You scared me to death. When I saw you in your truck, I couldn’t figure out what you were up to, and I still can’t. Billy says you’ve got some sort of second sense about trouble.”
Billy gets a beer—hell, a six-pack. In an attempt to keep things light, he said, “Maybe. But nuthin’ voodoo goin’ on here, ma’am. I don’t even know for sure why I followed when you left home.”
She smiled, and the light came back into her eyes. “Oh, fess up, you’ve got special powers.”
“That’s got to be it.” There could be something quite special about the physical powers he felt right now—other than the way they made his knees weak. “Are you intendin’ to spend the night up here? If so, Billy agrees I should check out the house before I leave.” Good, that sounded sensible and innocent.
“I’ve wasted enough of your time,” she said. “I’ll be stay-in’ here, but I’m very careful about making sure everything’s locked up.”
“When I set out to do something, I do it,” Finn said. “That will include replacing the floodlight. Where’s the key?”
She spun around and ran to the Lexus. With a purse strung over her shoulder and a bag in each hand, she returned and gave him a bundle of keys. “It’s the one with the string tied to it.”
The way he pushed doors open before entering each room gave Emma the feeling she was in an urban battle zone. She kept close behind him on the ground floor, then followed him upstairs.
He stopped suddenly, holding up a hand, and she bumped into him.
Finn turned and bent
down to whisper in her ear. “You don’t have to back me up. I can manage.”
Her teeth chattered, but she whispered back, “I’m a coward,” she said. “I don’t want to stay by myself.”
“And you were coming up here on your own? In the middle of the night?”
“Yes. This is home. I’d have been all right, but you’ve made me jumpy.”
“That makes perfect sense. Why didn’t I figure that out right off? I’m goin’ to take out my gun, just in case I did hear somethin’.”
Emma grabbed the back of his belt. “What? What did you hear?”
“Hush,” he told her and carried on, this time with a gun in his left hand.
She didn’t care if he thought her a sissy, or if she made a ridiculous picture; she kept a firm grip on his belt. He’d taken time to go home from the police station and change, she realized. Evidently his concern for her had taken a while to surface.
Brain fever. She’d heard of that and began to think she had it now. A normal woman didn’t feel slighted because a stranger took his time before following her around.
“All clear,” Finn said in a normal voice. He switched on lights. “I’ll double check the locks and get out of your hair.”
Her stomach felt wobbly. “You’re goin’ to have some coffee before you go out on that road again. Did you have dinner? You couldn’t have.”
“I’m just fine.” He ran down the stairs ahead of her. “I’ll fix that flood.”
Before she could stop him, he went ahead of her and outside, only to return in a couple of minutes. “Bulbs needed screwing in, is all,” he said.
“The least I can do is make sure you don’t fall asleep at the wheel. I’m very touched by your concern.” And she didn’t expect to have a moment’s peace once he left. “Thank you.”
“Are you uneasy about being here alone, Emma?” He stood in the hall and looked at her. The black jumpsuit looked terrific on her, and her hair sprang about, wonderfully wild. “I hope you’re confident, because I’m sure it’s safe. I should probably have stayed out of it and you’d have been just dandy.”
“I am,” she said with some force. “I’ll have to be.”
Body of Evidence Page 5