Hall, Jessica

by Into the Fire

  He couldn't let her do it. He'd heard stories from her cousin on what Gamble and his friends had done to her at that fancy college. She might love him, but he didn't deserve her. No one did.

  Before she could answer him, Caine grabbed her, clamped his hand over her mouth, and hauled her back. She struggled, but he held her easily. "No more of this, Isabel," he murmured next to her ear. "You let him go now."

  Outside Gamble kicked something, and wood cracked. "Look at this pissant place. This is what you want? The swamp and the gators and chopping fish bait all day? Is that why you threw mud at my friends? Because we don't have to live like this?"

  She stopped struggling.

  "Fine." Another kick, and something hit the water with a splash. "I'll go back and clean up your mess. You just stay the hell away from me."

  When his footsteps died away, Caine took his hand fromher mouth. "There, now." He went to check the window. "He's gone."

  "Why did you do that?" she asked him, her voice remote.

  He'd done it because he loved her, more and harder and deeper than Jean-Delano Gamble ever would. But he could never tell her that. He was just a swamp rat who worked for her father. "Look at yourself. Look what he's done to you." He gestured at her dress. "Your daddy told you how it would be."

  She didn't say anything. She simply stared at him.

  Awkwardly Caine touched her cheek. "He ain't good enough for you, chère."

  She caught his hand and pulled it away from her face. "You're wrong. I'm not good enough for him."

  Caine almost laughed. "How do you figure that?"

  "It doesn't matter how smart I am, or how hard I work, or how many scholarships I get. I'm trash. I can buy a dozen pair of white gloves and they'll still know." She tore at her dress with angry hands. "I can't get the stink of the bayou off of me."

  Something pierced his heart like an invisible dagger. "It ain't nothing to be ashamed of."

  She held up a fold of her dress. "Does this look proud to you, Caine? I wanted to dress like those other girls at school. I wanted to be like them. I hate what I am." She let go of the ruined material and rested her brow against the window, staring out at where Jean-Delano had been. "Now he does, too."

  The next day Caine had quit working for Remy and had gone deep into the bayou to fish and trap alone. He'd built himself a shack, and then a boat, and then a living. Those hard, lean years had been the making of Caine Gantry, and when he had saved enough, he'd returned to start his own outfit on the fringe of the Atchafalaya. He'd managed to forget about Sable and that night.

  Until she'd come back, too.

  Her plans for her fancy community project had infuriated Caine. She didn't care about the people of the bayou; she just wanted to hand out charity and run their lives so that she could feel above the rest of them. This was his home, his people, and he'd earned the right to live here.

  She'd given up hers. She didn't belong here anymore.

  He went over to the sink and washed his hands before he went back up to deal with the old man. "What do you need?"

  "You heard the news." It wasn't a question. "My Isabel is in trouble."

  Caine wiped his hands off on a rag. "What about it?"

  "Somebody tried to kill her."

  "I heard." Caine thought of Billy, and then moved his shoulders. "Likely they were after LeClare, and she got in the way."

  Remy grabbed the front of his shirt. "You know something about this?"

  "Just what's on the radio." He gave the old man a mild look. "You gonna work yourself into another heart attack, chèr."

  "This is my girl I'm talking about, Caine." Remy eased his hand away. "You know what they're gonna do to her. I need your help."

  "She knew what she was getting into." His mouth curled. "She should love being in the papers. All that free publicity."

  His head snapped back as Remy backhanded him. It wasn't much of a punch, but it seemed to settle things. "You best look for your help somewhere else, Remy."

  "I took you in when no one would've as much as spit on you, Caine Gantry. After what your papa did to me and mine, folks round here said I was crazy. I guess I was." Trembling with rage, the old man turned his back on him and walked away.

  Sable regained consciousness slowly, but kept her eyes closed and didn't move. Her head pounded something fierce, but she didn't dare reach up to check the spot where she'd hit it. Not when she realized she was alone with J. D., curled up beside him on the front seat of a strange car.

  If only he would stop touching her.

  He had his hand on her head, his fingers brushing the hair back from the side of her face. "This hasn't been your day, has it, baby?" He made a turn, which shifted her a little, and he put his right arm across her to keep her from tumbling to the floor. "Mine, either. Shit, what else can go wrong?"

  The tenderness in his voice made her want to snarl at him, but she bit down on her tongue and rode the waves of fury along with the painful throbbing in her head. A few more minutes, and she'd be at the hospital. He had to be taking her to a hospital.

  He wouldn't take her anywhere else, would he?

  She started counting the number of times he stopped the car at red lights, willing herself not to jerk when he rested his hand at the base of her throat. His fingertips absently traced the line of her collarbones, leaving trails of fire over the delicate skin and bones. Gooseflesh rose on her arms as she recalled how he would do the same thing when he kissed her. A flood of heat and delight drenched her insides as those old sensations rushed through her, just as powerful and intense as they had been ten years ago.

  Oh, God, when were they going to get there?

  Just as she opened her eyes, he pulled in over a speed bump and stopped the car. Immediately she closed them and refocused on maintaining her ruse.

  "I've got her," she heard J. D. say, then felt him lifting her carefully from the seat. He had her out and in his arms, and carried her as though she weighed no more than an infant.

  He didn't let go of her until a nurse hurried up to them and began asking questions. When a gurney was brought and he laid her down gently on it, someone draped her with a sheet.

  Now he'll go away, she told herself, relaxing.

  He laced her fingers with his. "I'm going in with her."

  No, no, leave me alone, J. D., she pleaded silently as the nurse took her pulse and snapped out some orders to call radiology and have the on-call neurosurgeon notified. Please, just go away.

  "I'm Dr. Mason," a crisp female voice said, close to Sable's left ear. "You know what happened to her?"

  "She was hit in the front and the back of her head this morning, then fell about thirty minutes ago and struck the temple on the left side."

  Someone was snipping away at her clothes. The cool wash of air against her bare skin made her want to cringe—was he watching them strip her? "Did you do this to her, sir?" the doctor asked, her voice chilling over as her fingers searched through Sable's scalp.

  J. D.'s voice took on an equally frigid edge. "No, I didn't."

  "What about these burn marks on her clothes?"

  "She was caught in a fire this morning," he told her.

  "That's when she hit her head the first time. The paramedics said she might have a mild concussion."

  "Why wasn't she brought in before?" The doctor's hands moved carefully along her body, halting at her wrists. "These look like defensive wounds. Nancy, call security."

  "Hang on, Doc." There was a rustle of cloth and the snap of a wallet. "I'm Lieutenant Gamble from NOPD, Homicide. This lady is a witness to a crime."

  "Well, she's a patient now. I want a head and chest on this one, right away." The doctor's voice thawed a few degrees as she quickly finished the exam. "You can go and wait out in the lobby, Lieutenant."

  "She's under police protection; I'm staying with her."

  He wasn't going to leave her. Please, no, tell him no.

  "No, you will not," the doctor snapped, as if hearing her thou
ghts.

  "Sorry, Lieutenant, but if s hospital policy," the nurse said. "Don't worry—you'll be able to see her after she's in a room."

  "Keep her name off the patient lists—I don't want anyone to know she's been admitted." J. D. was suddenly very close to her, and she felt his hand on her face again. He rubbed his thumb along the curve of her cheek. "Je vous attendrai."

  I'll be waiting for you.

  "Yeah, I know she's at Mercy," Billy snarled into the pay phone. "I'll go in and do her, but it's gonna cost you another fifty grand."

  The voice on the other end of the line grew ugly.

  "You don't want to be shortchanging me," Billy said, switching the phone from his left to his right ear as he turned and looked at the hospital's ER entrance. "Not when I got proof of what you done."

  The line fell silent.

  He smiled. "I guess we understand each other. You bring the rest of my money tomorrow night. Don't be late." He slammed the receiver down and walked over to the gas station's minimart.

  The clerk, a young black man sitting on a stool behind the counter, put aside the latest issue of Hustler to ring up Billy's six-pack of beer. He looked at the money Billy held out like it was a dead rat. "There's blood on that, man. I can't take it."

  "Wash it off." Billy threw the stained bills on the counter.

  The clerk started to shake his head, then thought better of it and stuffed the money in his till. "Whatever you say, man."

  Billy drove over to the visitors' parking lot at the hospital, parked in the front row, and popped open a beer. As he drank, he watched how people came in and went out. The visitors all shuffled through the glassed-in front entrance, where a guard made them sign in and handed them a tag. The staff went in through a side door, but Billy couldn't see what was inside. On the south side of the hospital, a construction crew was working on a fenced-in skeletal extension of the building. Double doors leading into the hospital had been propped open, and there was a rack of hard hats outside the fence. Everyone came and went as they pleased.

  He finished his beer and crumpled the can in his fist. Smothering the bitch with a pillow wouldn't be as nice as watching her burn, but sometimes a man had to make compromises.

  Chapter Four

  "Did you enjoy your flight, Mr. Gamble?"

  Cort would have settled for a nod, but the line of disembarking passengers ahead of him had stopped for a handicapped passenger having trouble with his courtesy wheelchair. "Yes, thank you."

  "I'm glad we could find you a seat at the last moment." The friendly flight attendant let her gaze drift down, then back up as her practiced smile became more genuine. "Are you visiting New Orleans for Mardi Gras, or are you a local?"

  "I'm a native." He checked the line again, then his watch. He'd tried calling J. D. three times while changing planes in Atlanta, but kept getting his voice mail. He wasn't going to call home until he got the facts on the arson and Marc's death straight. He already knew what his mother would have to say.

  "I'll be back next week for a two-day layover," the attendant confided, and reached out to rest the tips of her manicured fingers on his sleeve. "Would be great if I had someone to show me around, maybe take me to dinner?..."

  The coy invitation fishing made him take a good look at her. The blond hair, white teeth, and high breasts were too perfect to be real, but she had a pleasant voice and a nice tan. She was petite, too, which he preferred. From the way she was eyeing his crotch she'd probably be eager to skip the sights and dinner and head straight for the nearest bed.

  Cort never had a problem finding eager women, though, and lately he'd been getting pretty bored with them.

  "There will be a half million men in the city next week," he told her as the line started moving again and he picked up his carry-on. "You'll find a date."

  As he went downstairs to retrieve his garment bag from baggage claim, Cort passed by one of the terminal's courtesy television monitors and caught the tail end of a breaking news broadcast from one of the local city stations.

  "—have finally confirmed that the victim is forty-seven-year-old Democratic gubernatorial candidate Marc LeClare. Mr. LeClare, who was a well-known local businessman and community figure, had been favored to win the election by a two-to-one margin." The anchorman produced a sympathetic frown before he went on. "The survivor and apparent witness to the murder, a young woman"—a small, blurry inset photo appeared on the screen beside the anchorman—"has not yet been identified by authorities. News Nine will be bringing you live updates as they come in."

  It can't be her. Cort went over and flipped the channel to another local station, and watched another report about the murder. This time the broadcast showed his brother and his partner leading the pale-faced redhead out of an elevator at police headquarters. J. D. looked grim, as did Terri Vincent, which set off the first alarm in Corf s head. When the witness lifted her head and looked up blindly into the camera, Cort began to swear under his breath.

  It was her—Sable Duchesne, J. D.'s old college girlfriend. How the hell did she get involved in this? He kept watching as Sable got into a shoving match with a reporter and fell, hitting her head on the way down. The ferocious look on his brother's face as he lifted her from the floor made Cort grab his bag and head for the nearest phone—only this time, he called his own department.

  "Hell of a mess," his senior investigator told him as he went over what he knew about the arson case. "We're waiting for the medical examiner's report on LeClare. The redhead barely got out before the building went up."

  Terri Vincent hadn't breathed a word about the witness being J. D.'s ex. She would have known, too. J. D. wasn't one to keep something like that from his partner. Why she hadn't told Cort would be one of the first things he'd take up with her when he got downtown. "What was used to torch the building?"

  "Amoco cocktails," his investigator said, referring to a very specific type of homemade gasoline bomb. "We recovered one partially intact, and if s exactly like the ones used to torch that marina last month, and the processing plant in December."

  Cort thought of the serial arsonist who had been plaguing LeClare's commercial-fishing industries. From the threats LeClare had received, Corf s department was fairly sure it was a group of disgruntled independent fishermen torching the businessman's property—fishermen who were Cajuns, just like Sable Duchesne.

  It might be a coincidence, or maybe Sable had another reason for being there.

  "Send someone to pick up my bags at the airport. I'll leave the claim checks at the information counter."

  Cort pulled the long-term parking ticket from his wallet.

  "Where you headed, Chief?"

  "Downtown."

  Sable knew the moment J. D. left the examination room, and unconsciously relaxed for a moment before concentrating on keeping the ER staff convinced that she was not going to regain consciousness. Her stretcher was wheeled out of the exam room into a hallway. From the conversation between the nurse and the orderly, they were moving her to radiology and from there would take her to a room.

  "So what's her story?" she heard a young male voice ask after she was pushed into a very cold room.

  "Not sure. Head injury, I think." The orderly who had taken her from the ER had only received instructions to transport her to radiology. "You want her chart?"

  "No, leave it there. I've got a portable pelvis in ten minutes. I've got to get this one done fast." Something soft but stiff encircled her neck. "Help me move her?"

  She remained limp as they lifted and maneuvered her onto the exam table, and she kept her eyes closed as the radiology machines and film plates were arranged around her. Only when the volunteer stepped outside did she open her eyes to slits, to see the layout of the room. There was a protective panel behind which a young male technician stood over a complicated-looking console. The orderly was gone, and there was no sign of J. D. anywhere.

  Ican stop pretending now.

  She watched the young male technician a
s he worked. He turned knobs and punched buttons, and the equipment buzzed. He came out to change plates and smiled down at her.

  "Hey, there. How are you feeling?"

  "My head hurts," she admitted.

  "I imagine it does." His pager went off, and he checked it and sighed. "Listen, sweetheart, I've got an emergency right down the hall here that can't wait. You just relax, and I'll be right back, okay?" When she nodded, he grinned again and wheeled one of the smaller machines out of the room.

  Sable rolled onto her side and tugged the thin sheet around her. That and the patient gown she wore were so thin that they didn't keep her from shivering. The minutes ticked by, and when the technician didn't return she grew restless.

  Did he forget about me?

  At last she sat up, climbed down from the table, and went to see what was holding up the technician. She reached the door just as it swung open, and stepped back behind it.

  A short, wiry-looking man in a yellow hard hat came in and walked toward the table. She couldn't see his face, but he left a strangely familiar odor in his wake. A smell like fish... mixed with gasoline.

  It was him.

  Sable edged around the door and ran out into the hall. There was no one outside in either direction, so she darted into the unmarked door on the other side of the hall. It turned out to be some kind of supply closet, complete with stacked rolling carts of clean linens.

  What do I do now?

  She couldn't stay here; she had to get away. She needed clothes.

  A rack of white lab coats hung on one side of the closet, and she grabbed one, then nearly screamed as the gap revealed the motionless body of the young X-ray technician. The whites of his eyes were pink and his jaw sagged; there were dark bruises around his neck.

  He'd been strangled.

  Her stomach surged as she reached down and checked for a pulse, but found none. She threw a wild look at the door. Would he come back? Would he look for her in here?

  Find J. D.

  She went to the door and eased it open a fraction of an inch. The stink of fish and gasoline hit her nose, and she saw a man's back only a few inches away. The man was still wearing a yellow hard hat. He was standing right in front of the closet, waiting.