Hall, Jessica

by Into the Fire

  He dragged a hand through his hair. "This is turning into a circus."

  "They're already lining up downstairs to sell popcorn and peanuts." She nodded toward Sable. "No more time to play fond memories, J. D. We've got to get her out of here, right now."

  Moriah Navarre heard the low, appreciative male whistles behind her as she came out of the dress shop, but didn't react to them. She was too angry. She'd driven all the way downtown so J. D. could take her to lunch, and he'd stood her up—again. She couldn't make him jealous by seeing his brother, because Cort was out of town—again. And J. D.'s partner had scored points off her by informing her on both accounts—again.

  She hated Terri Vincent almost as much as the wolf whistles.

  It wasn't just because J. D.'s partner was smart, funny, and attractive—although she was, enough to make Moriah wish she'd transfer to another division. In Alaska. And while it grated that J. D. spent all day with Terri while barely remembering to call Moriah twice a week, she understood that his job had to come first—for now.

  No, what really bugged her was the way Terri Vincent treated her. Most of the time she showed nothing but contempt, but now and then, she came across with this completely inappropriate pity. As if Moriah Navarre of the New Orleans Navarres, who had the money and looks and friends the female cop would never have, needed sympathy.

  She took out her cell phone and tried calling Laure LeClare. As president of the Garden District Historical Society, Laure supervised several committees, and Moriah had volunteered to help out with a society tea. The housekeeper answered, and told her that Laure had had to go downtown. As Moriah hung up, she frowned. She'd promised to stop by the LeClares' house after lunch to discuss the catering for the tea, but perhaps Laure had forgotten.

  "Hey, baby, how 'bout you strut that fine little ass of yours this way?"

  She turned around to see a trio of city workers loitering around an open manhole. The biggest one, a minimountain of muscle with a bristly black goatee and a gleaming shaved head, was grinning at her like an ape in heat.

  When you look at some men, her mother maintained, you just know Darwin was fight.

  Moriah was in no mood for infatuated primates. If she were Terri Vincent, she could just flash her badge or her gun and they'd shut right up. But Terri commanded respect—Moriah didn't.

  Maybe it was time that changed. "Are you speaking to me?"

  "Yeah, sugar, come on over." He patted the top of one of his log-shaped thighs. "You can park yourself right here. I'll give you something to talk about."

  His companions erupted into laughter.

  She put away her phone, changed direction, and walked right up to them. The workers hooted as she took a stand in front of her oversized heckler.

  "You know, women really don't like being ogled," she told him, keeping her tone calm and cool. "Or being subjected to that kind of language."

  "You're no fun." He leered at the front of her blouse. "What's the matter, honey? Am I scaring you?"

  "Scaring me? Hardly." Moriah glanced at the wheelbarrow by the manhole cover, and remembered a trick her brother, James, had showed her once. Deliberately she reached out and squeezed his bulging, sweaty bicep. "Let me guess—you're the biggest, strongest guy on this crew, right?"

  "Damn straight." And proud of it, from the way he flexed his arm under her fingers. "I can go all night long, sugar. All night long."

  "How about twenty yards?" She pointed to the wheelbarrow. "I bet you that I can push something in that wheelbarrow across the street, but you won't be able to push it back."

  He sized up her spare, petite frame and shook his head sadly. "Oh, darlin', wake up. You're dreaming."

  "Maybe. Maybe not." She tilted her head to one side, looking at him from under her lashes. "Tell you what—if you win, I'll go out on a date with you."

  As his buddies produced sounds of lewd approval, the minimountain's goatee stretched until it nearly met his ears.

  "But if I win," she added, "you have to promise to stop harassing women on the street."

  "Hot damn, then I've already won." He hitched up his belt as he stood. "Let's go."

  "Great." She went over, grabbed the wheelbarrow, and brought it to him. "Okay, climb in."

  "What the—" His mouth flattened and his face reddened as he got the joke.

  The other men started laughing again, this time at their friend, until they were gasping for breath and grabbing their sides.

  The infatuation faded from the minimountain's eyes. "Hell, lady, that ain't fair."

  "I never said it would be." She patted his cheek. "Now remember your promise."

  On the way back to her car, her cell phone rang, and she took it out of her purse, hoping it was J. D. "Hello?"

  "Moriah." It was Laure LeClare, and she was sobbing. "I'm at the police station.... can you come here?"

  "Lord, I was just there—are you all right?" Alarmed, Moriah searched in her purse for her keys. "What's wrong? What's happened?"

  "It's Marc...." Laure broke off for a moment, then managed to get out a few more words. "He was caught in a fire, Moriah—he's dead. My husband's dead."

  "I'll take her out through the back," Terri offered as she, J. D., and Sable left the interview room and headed for the elevators. "You'd better talk to the wife."

  J. D. knew Marc's wife from the many social occasions that the Gambles attended. Laure LeClare was an elegant, soft-spoken woman who had been a devoted wife and a staunch supporter of her husband's election campaign. J. D. knew she was going to be devastated, and as a friend of the family he felt obligated to take her statement and make sure she returned home safely—especially with the media still lurking around. At the same time, he didn't want to leave Sable.

  Terri intercepted his gaze. "Go. I'll look after her."

  As soon as the elevator doors opened to the main floor, a young woman in a bright orange tank top and an older man in shabby clothes waiting in the lobby stood up. Before Terri could stop her, Sable hurried out of the elevator.

  "Elle voilà—there she is!" the generously endowed blonde cried out, hurrying over, "Êtes-vous bien? Are you all right, chère?"

  J. D. didn't recognize either one of them, but from the look on Sable's face and the dialect of French the girl spoke, he assumed they were relatives. Something twisted inside him. Back in college, she had never introduced him to her family.

  "Non, non." The man approached, shaking his head. He wore sun-faded work clothes, and his hands were heavily callused. "Comment est-ce que ceci s'est produit? Qui a fait ceci a vous?"

  "Je suis très bien—I'm fine. The police are still checking into things, Uncle." Sable ignored Terri, who was trying to steer her away from the lobby. "Did you speak to Remy?"

  "Oui." Hilaire shot an ugly look at J. D. "Your Papa, he had to take some of his pills, but he is well, chère."

  "Ms. Duchesne, we need to leave," Terri said, her voice low. She caught J. D.'s gaze, and nodded toward the reporters on the other side of the lobby, who were watching them with intense interest.

  "This is my cousin Hilaire Martin and her father, my uncle August," Sable said. "I'm going home with them."

  "You can't." J. D. put a hand on her cheek and made her look at him. "It isn't safe."

  A reporter approached them, followed by a cameraman. "Excuse me, is this the lady they rescued from the warehouse fire?"

  "Get lost," J. D. said.

  Terri stepped between them. "Nothing happening here, friend. Move along."

  The reporter ignored both of them and craned his neck to look at Sable. "Ma'am? May I have your name? Were you friends with Marc LeClare?"

  Hilaire snorted. "She was more than friends."

  Another reporter focused his attention on Sable's cousin. "What sort of relationship did they have?"

  Sable stared at her cousin. "Hilaire, shut up."

  The other girl winced. "Right, uh, no comment."

  "J. D.?"

  Terri swore softly under her b
reath.

  J. D. swiveled around to see Moriah Navarre walking toward them. Beside her was Laure LeClare, ashen-faced and leaning heavily against Moriah while staring at Sable with wide, disbelieving eyes. Moriah also regarded Sable as if she were some kind of ax murderess.

  They'd obviously heard every word. As awkward situations went, it didn't get worse—and then it did.

  More cameras encircled them as reporters converged around them, calling out questions to J. D., Sable, and the widow.

  "Mrs. LeClare, can you confirm that your husband was the victim found burned to death this morning in the French Quarter?"

  "Was he murdered? Could the murder be politically motivated?"

  "Lieutenant Gamble, who's the redhead?"

  Sable cringed as the media pressed in. Terri Vincent started calling out loudly for everyone to step back, but they weren't listening to her. The same way it had been that night before the dance.

  She was covered in filth, her dress ruined, everything she'd done for nothing. She was on her hands and knees in the mud, where they said she belonged.

  But she didn't belong there. She'd done nothing wrong.

  The biggest boy pulled her up and shoved a huge handful of gray Spanish moss down the front of her ruined dress. "Don't forget your corsage!" He kept his hand in long enough to squeeze her breast.

  That was when all the feelings she had been holding back for months erupted, and she snapped.

  She wrenched out the boy's hand and the moss, and flung it in his face. Then she bent down, filled her hands with mud, and started throwing it at anything that moved.

  "Don't you like my perfume?" She pelted the girls' fine white dresses and the boys' immaculate tuxes. "Come on, try some on!"

  The girls ran away screaming, and their boyfriends followed. Like the cowards they were.

  Other girls came out of the dorm and shrieked at Sable to stop. She threw mud at them, too. She threw mud at anyone who came near her. It felt wonderful. She stopped only when she heard someone shouting to call the police. Then she walked away from the dorm and out to the highway, never stopping or looking back. She paused to get most of the filth off her face, using her pretty new gloves to wipe it away. As she waved down the truck, she dropped her gloves by the roadside before climbing up and asking for a ride out to the Atchafalaya.

  She'd go home, and she'd stay there, where she belonged. And God help anyone who came after her.

  A heavyset man grabbed Sable from the side. "What is your name? Are you Marc LeClare's mistress?" He shoved a microphone in her face.

  "Get away from me." Sable slapped the microphone away, but the reporter pushed back. "Leave me alone!"

  Someone else pushed from the other side, and Sable lost her balance and fell backward, arms flailing.

  Terri shouted for assistance while J. D. made the grab to catch Sable, but her head struck the corner of the elevator door frame with a loud rap. He got his arms between her and the floor before she could hit it, but she went limp. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

  J. D. knelt and supported her head. "Sable?"

  "Is that a first name, or last?" One of the reporters pushed forward eagerly.

  Terri elbowed him aside, crouched down next to J. D., and leaned in. "Get her out of here; take her to the hospital."

  J. D. gathered her up in his arms, stood, and used his shoulder to ram his way through the throng of reporters. He strode past the gaping Moriah and Laure, proceeded behind the reception desk, and pulled the keys for an unmarked car from the vehicle board.

  "I'm taking her over to Mercy," he told the desk sergeant in a low, furious voice. "Tell these fucking piranhas she'll be at Charity."

  The uniformed officer started to say something, then looked at J. D.'s face and nodded. "You got it, Lieutenant."

  When Caine got back from the city, his men were already out on the water. Only John had stayed behind, and after one look at Caine's face he got busy repairing some traps.

  Caine called Billy's wife, Cecilia, who began crying as soon as he told her that he'd fired Billy. He offered to have someone take her in until her husband got over his latest binge, but she only hung up on him.

  Someone would look after Cecilia anyway. Bayou people took care of their own.

  Caine kept the radio on while he worked on patching a hull, and stopped only to listen to the latest update on the warehouse fire. It hadn't been confirmed, but a source was quoted as identifying the body found at the scene as gubernatorial candidate Marc LeClare. The reporters didn't have the name of the young, redheaded woman who had survived the fire, or why she'd been in the warehouse with LeClare.

  Caine knew. He'd always known everything about her. But Isabel had made her choices ten years ago, and so had he.

  "Gantry."

  Remy Duchesne's rasping voice echoed in the boathouse, but Caine didn't look up from the hole he was patching on the port side of his fishing boat. He'd been expecting a visit from his old boss all morning. "Here."

  The old man walked across to join him, and studied the work in progress. "You run into something with that?" He nodded not at the boat but at Caine's right hand, which was swollen and gashed across three knuckles.

  Caine thought about telling Remy about Billy, then looked up into his ruined face and felt the old rage and shame crushing down on him, just as heavy and immovable as ever. "Trap got wedged." He dropped the brush back into the can of liquid sealant he was using to waterproof the patch and stood up.

  Caine was bigger than anyone on the Atchafalaya, thanks to his bad blood, and he had at least a foot and a half on Remy, who was short and wire-thin. Still, when Caine looked at the twisted, raddled skin of his old boss's face, he felt about six inches tall.

  Caine's father, Bud Gantry, had been the one who put those scars on Remy Duchesne's face.

  "I need to talk to you," Remy said. "Just a minute." Caine went down into the cabin and stepped into the tiny head, then shut the door and leaned back against the wall.

  After Bud went to prison, Caine's mother, Dodie, had been free to devote herself fully to the two things she had loved more than Bud—drinking and screwing whoever bought her a drink. Dodie had died of liver failure a few years later, leaving sixteen-year-old Caine an orphan.

  Even back then, everyone tried to look out for each other, but the belligerent son of a bragging brute and a drunken whore didn't rate much attention.

  It had been Remy Duchesne who had helped Caine bury his mother, and then had offered him a job checking traps and taking tourists out. Maybe it was because Caine had always lived like a wild thing, or that Remy had noticed him hanging around the bait shop. Caine had been proud, and wanted to refuse, but the opportunity to be closer to Sable had been irresistible.

  That had been all Caine had lived for—being close to Isabel Duchesne. From the time she was a baby, he'd been spellbound by her. She was, quite simply, the loveliest thing he'd ever seen.

  Caine had stayed with Remy and watched the old man's little girl grow into a beautiful woman. He'd watched her win her scholarship and head off to college, and had never said a word to her about how he felt. Caine knew he'd never be good enough for her, but there was always a little hope in his heart that someday she'd notice him. If he worked hard, and lived right, maybe one day he could earn the right to take her out dancing under the stars. It wasn't until the night that Sable ran away from Tulane that he discovered how she truly felt about him.

  He saw Isabel run across the old weathered boards of the pier, stopping only to grab a small empty crate. When she got to the boathouse, she stood on the crate, opened the window, and hoisted herself through, then closed it behind her.

  "Sable!" an angry voice called. "Where the hell are you?"

  Caine watched from the shadows as Sable pressed back against the wall. She was shaking, tears streaming down her face, and her hair and skin and delicate lace dress—her mother's dress—were dripping with filth.

  He came up behind her, and
put his big, bony hand over her mouth, stifling the cry he knew she would make. "Shhh." He moved around her until he stepped into the light from the window. "Just me."

  Sable closed her eyes and slumped against him.

  Caine had never held her in his arms before. It didn't matter that she was covered from head to toe with muck. He was holding her, the girl he'd loved for so long that he couldn't breathe without thinking of her. He held on as long as he dared, then gently set her back to arm's length. "He do this to you, chère?"

  "No." She glanced at the window. "I slipped and fell."

  His black eyes narrowed. "You never fell in your life."

  As the voice calling her name grew closer, a wrenching sob exploded from her throat. "I can't face him, not like this." She clutched at him, her small hands frantic. "Help me, please, Caine."

  He wanted to go and rearrange Jean-Delano Gamble's pretty face, but he settled for pulling her back into the shadows with him. He kept an arm around her waist as he watched the window. As long as Jean-Del stayed away from Sable, Caine wouldn't interfere. If Gamble came in after her, well, then all bets were off.

  Outside, footsteps pounded along the pier and then stopped just outside of the shack. "Goddamn it, Sable! Have you lost your mind? How could you do that to my friends?"

  Caine pulled her closer, wanting the college boy to come in the boathouse, willing him to go away for her sake.

  "Last chance, Sable," Gamble shouted on the other side of the shack's wall. "Do you hear me? You come on out here now and talk to me, or we're finished."

  Caine felt the change in her, how her shaking stopped, the way she tensed her shoulders. She carefully eased away from his arm and stepped toward the window.