by Rita Herron
She jerked awake, bathed in sweat. Dark storm clouds obliterated the sunlight outside and cast a threatening, dreary gray hue on the room that mirrored her mood.
“Crystal, you had a bad dream again.”
Lex. His husky voice reverberated through the shadows.
“Yes,” she whispered, reaching for his hand. The scaly skin should have made her withdraw, but she barely noticed. Oddly though, his hand felt colder. Almost icy to the touch. And he didn’t seem to react to her face at all. Maybe she wasn’t so hideous…
“I dreamt I had a child somewhere.” Her voice caught. “A baby crying for me.”
He squeezed her hand, brushed her hair from her cheek. “You will find your way, my sweetness.”
Tears clogged her throat. “But I’ve been gone for months. What if I have a child and he or she has forgotten me?” Panic seized her chest and turned her voice into a whimper.
“You will find your answers,” Lex said calmly.
“Dr. Pace says I need to heal more. I hear what he’s not telling me—I need more surgery. This latest treatment didn’t work.”
“Do not believe everything he tells you.” Lex’s brittle tone sent goose bumps down her spine. Footsteps sounded outside the door, then suddenly a cold wind blew through the room, rattling the windowpanes. “He has his own agenda.”
“What do you mean?” He had been everything to her these last few months: doctor, friend, savior.
“Don’t trust anyone, Crystal. Even Dr. Pace.”
Crystal shivered and turned to face Lex, but he was gone, and, once again, the room was empty.
* * *
THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON was a virtual nightmare. Damon and Jean-Paul met briefly with Antwaun and Dryer, but Antwaun was so volatile that they spent their short time together attempting to calm him. Jean-Paul gave him a good dressing-down about behaving inside, keeping a low profile and putting his ear to the wall. Sometimes, insiders talked, and Antwaun might possibly learn something helpful from one of the inmates.
Such as who had set him up. Which cops the prisoners liked to work with.
Antwaun finally agreed, and adopted his game face. The Chameleon—if there was one thing he knew how to do, it was to play a part. Lie.
Surely he wasn’t lying to them about his innocence.
Jean-Paul went to the station to look into the offshore account and see if he could find out who had planted the bribe money, while Damon drove to his parents’ to give them the bad news.
His heart wrenched at the pain on their faces. Even as he assured them he and Jean-Paul would clear Antwaun, the anguish of his family made him feel raw inside. Antwaun was innocent.
But he was not. If they knew what he had done, about the E-team and the missions they’d pulled off, about the woman who’d gotten caught in the middle and lost her life, it would kill them.
So many secrets…Tell and you die.
He wasn’t worried about dying himself, but he knew repercussions would spread to his family. Not just the pain of the truth about his last mission—their lives would also be endangered.
When he left, he drove straight to Kendra Yates’s apartment to meet Jean-Paul’s partner, Detective Carson Graves. Kendra lived in a modest older unit on the fringes of Bourbon Street. The place had already been thoroughly searched and, as the police had reported, they found no computer or files. Damn. He wanted her research on the dirty cops. The furniture was a hodgepodge of antiques and crafty items that she had obviously picked up in the market. A few photos adorned the built-in bookshelf; one of her receiving some kind of journalism award drew Damon’s eye. He stared at the face in the photo, trying to reconcile the beautiful brunette with a heart-shaped face and deep-set eyes with the mutilated hand they had found, and his stomach revolted.
“I can see why Antwaun was enthralled,” Jean-Paul commented.
Damon nodded. He took a newspaper photo from the desk to have a reference when he asked around. Carson searched her bedroom, and Jean-Paul the den, finding a book planner the police and the people who’d ransacked the place had missed.
“There are a couple of names of contacts in here that I want to check out,” Jean-Paul said. “They may be informants, may have talked to her before she disappeared.”
“The police confiscated a toothbrush and hairbrush for DNA,” Damon said. “Jean-Paul, can you access the results of the trace evidence the police found?”
Jean-Paul agreed and Damon thumbed through past issues of the papers stacked in the corner, searching for Kendra’s byline, hoping to find another story she’d written that might have landed her in trouble. But nothing jumped out at him. “I’m going to the newspaper office and pushing the publisher to tell us what he knows.”
They agreed to check in and left Carson to finish searching her apartment.
At the newspaper office where Kendra Yates had worked, Damon asked to speak with the head of the paper. Warren Allan, a middle-aged man with a bad comb-over, yellowed teeth from smoking and a jacket two sizes too small, gestured toward an orange vinyl chair. His desk overflowed with newspapers, clippings of various articles, bulging file folders, coffee cups, chewing-gum wrappers and an ashtray that looked as if it hadn’t been emptied in days.
“I’ve been expecting you, Special Agent Dubois.” A small smile stretched his thick lips into a rubbery line. “In fact, I expected an entire fort of you by now.”
Damon narrowed his eyes to slits. “Then I’ll cut to the chase, Mr. Allan. My brother is innocent. Someone is setting him up and I’m going to find out who it is.”
Allan’s chair squeaked as he leaned back and steepled his hands. “Are you sure about that? Maybe you don’t know your brother as well as you thought.”
“And you don’t know him at all.” Damon gritted his teeth. “Tell me what Kendra Yates had on Karl Swafford, and any tips she had on the possibility of corruption in the NOPD.”
“You really think I’m going to divulge that information?” His cheeks swelled with his chuckle. “I’m sitting on the hottest story to hit New Orleans since the Swamp Devil murders last Mardi Gras. And the murdered victim happened to be one of my own reporters.” He leaned forward, a menacing glint to his eyes. “I want the bastard who killed her to pay.”
“So do I,” Damon stated matter-of-factly. “And I can assure you that your cooperation will help us find the person responsible for her death.”
A long, tension-filled pause stretched between the two men.
“Just give me something,” Damon finally conceded. “Some hint as to where she was on the investigation. And I’ll be certain that you get the exclusive on anything I find out, when the time is right, of course.”
Allan hesitated, then nodded. He didn’t believe that Kendra had run off with Swafford and thought the man had faked his own death and might have killed her. “She traced him to a plastic surgeon who works for the government.”
Damon’s blood heated. “His name?”
“Dr. Reginald Pace.”
Damon gripped the edge of the chair with white knuckles. Reginald Pace…had assisted the E-team in secretive projects. He’d been known to alter appearances for the witness protection program. And he would also do the same for any criminal for the right price.
Unfortunately, extracting information from him was going to be nearly impossible.
* * *
LEX VAN WORMER RUBBED A HAND across his scaly skin, watching the dry particles float to the floor like dust. His skin grew drier, flakier every day as if death was slowly rusting away his flesh, tearing it from his brittle bones with jagged fingers. His body felt cold, too, chilled to the bone, as if ice had settled into his veins, or perhaps his blood had ceased to flow and had turned to stone. Sometimes darkness robbed him of precious seconds, minutes, hours, and the time he was able to drag himself from the depths grew shorter and less frequent as each day passed.
Only the thought of seeing Crystal spurred him to fight his way through the muck of quicksand trying
to consume him.
He had waited all his life to find a woman like her. A woman to love. A woman who needed him. A woman to guide him into redemption.
For the devil had owned his soul most of his life.
Like an off-key song you couldn’t get out of your mind, his father’s vile descriptions of the devil’s wrath burned in his head. He would pay for his transgressions. Burn for his sins. Spend eternity being punished.
Despair made his chest ache, and he dropped to his knees beside the bed, lowered his head against the mattress and prayed to the heavens to help him last another day. To help him find his way into the light. To allow him to atone for his sins by watching over Crystal.
For she was in grave danger.
Dr. Pace pretended to care, but Lex knew his lies. Lex had seen the man’s other side. He, too, had been possessed by the devil.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT TOOK DAMON ANOTHER week to get in touch with Dr. Pace, a week of anxious hell for Antwaun and the family.
“Dr. Pace, thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice.” Damon settled into the leather wing chair across the plastic surgeon’s desk. Although Pace consulted and sometimes took on patients not associated with government projects, many were of a confidential nature. He also worked with universities on the latest research techniques involving plastic surgery and had assisted in cutting-edge work with facial reconstruction on severely injured patients, including infants with birth defects.
“Yes, well, we do have a history, Special Agent Dubois.” Pace stared at him over his reading glasses. “So, to what do I owe this visit? Your team have another problem you want me to take care of?”
Damon swallowed at the reminder of his secret military missions. The E-team, the Erasers, had been a special-ops elite squad, carefully chosen for their individual skills. Damon, a tactical leader as well as an explosives expert; Max Levine, helicopter pilot and computer genius; Calvin Norris, sniper and search-and-rescue leader; and Lex Van Wormer, security specialist.
If there was any problem the government wanted taken care of, sanctioned or not, the E-team was called in to erase it. No one was to know of their existence. Even Pace didn’t know the details of their work. And no member would ever tell.
Tell and you die.
“I’m with the bureau now,” Damon responded.
Pace nodded, a small grin splitting his face. “Yes, that’s right. FBI.”
Damon almost laughed. Pace didn’t believe him. The team was tight-knit and was virtually impossible to escape. But when he’d left, the three guys on the original E-team had formed a private business after they’d left the military, conducting government missions as well as taking on private cases. Max had said some of the new members were even needlessly violent, and had asked about his defection.
Damon had opted out and left, although the others hadn’t liked it one damn bit.
“I need to know any information you may have on a man named Karl Swafford.” Damon watched Pace for signs of recognition. But not so much as a blink of an eye or a twitch. Of course, the man was trained in scrutinizing body gestures and hiding them as well.
“I’ve heard of him, as most of the people in New Orleans have.”
Damon grunted. “I have reason to believe that he faked his death and disappeared. And that you helped him.”
Pace’s eyebrow arched upward. “And where did you get this information?”
“Let’s just say that the death of a certain reporter brought it to light.”
“You mean Kendra Yates, the woman your brother is accused of murdering.”
“Antwaun is innocent,” Damon said. “And I need your help, Reginald. If Swafford is alive, he may have killed Miss Yates. I also think he has someone on the inside who helped frame my brother for her death.”
“Interesting theory. I wish I could help you, but I can’t.”
“Did Kendra Yates question you about Swafford?”
“No. And I did not perform plastic surgery on him either.”
Damon silently cursed, then withdrew the photo of Kendra and placed it on the desk. “Look at this carefully, Reginald. Are you sure this woman didn’t approach you? She might have worn a disguise.”
Dr. Pace made a token show of examining the photo, then exhaled and leaned back nonchalantly. “No, I’ve never seen her before in my life.”
Damon understood the reason for Dr. Pace’s secrecy. His silence protected not only himself, but the members of the E-team, government VIPs, witnesses in the WITSEC program and current patients. Hell, his secrecy had kept Damon alive.
But the tiny tremor in the doctor’s eyelid gave him away this time. He had seen Kendra Yates, but he didn’t want to admit to it.
Possibilities floated through Damon’s head. What if Kendra had threatened to write about Dr. Pace in the paper?
Perhaps he’d panicked and killed her. Or he might have reported her snooping to the military or another fed who’d decided she needed to be diposed of.
His gut tightened. What if the insider who’d killed her and set up Antwaun wasn’t with the local police department but was one of his coworkers at the agency?
* * *
CRYSTAL FELT AS IF she were crawling out of her skin. She had to get out of the room.
The sidewalk was dimly lit, the woods creating shadowy nooks that offered privacy. Surely the garden would be empty, and she wouldn’t have to worry about being seen or the pitying gossip.
She dressed in a cotton warm-up suit and slippers, then padded down the hall and out the door. Unable to stop herself, she glanced in the window, searching for her reflection, but the frosted glass only allowed for small patches of her features to come through. The swelling had gone down. She couldn’t tell much, but she thought she looked almost normal.
And why hadn’t Dr. Pace allowed her to see herself? Was the image distorted?
A slight breeze ruffled the leaves of the tupelo trees and colorful pansies danced in the flower boxes flanking the brick walkway that wove through the garden. This slice of heaven was her reprieve. She hugged her arms around her waist as she examined each section of flowers, sniffed the delicate petals of the lilies, inhaled the scent of magnolias and honeysuckle, and finally stopped to admire the roses. Thankfully all her senses were freed for such enjoyments, unlike after the accident when the only thing she could smell was the strong odor of antiseptic and charred flesh.
Suddenly a shiver rippled through her, and she glanced toward the dark woods beyond, knowing dangers lurked there, hidden and waiting to pounce. Gators floated just beneath the murky Mississippi, their yellowed eyes piercing the darkness, teeth gnashing and sharpening as they waited to strike. Snakes slithered through the mossy banks and water, curling in the trees, silent vipers that could kill a person with a single bite. And the legends of other monsters, half human, half beast—like the Swamp Devil who’d combed the murk—haunted her with what-ifs.
What if she left here and one of those monsters came after her?
Sometimes she ached to leave, while other times she feared she wouldn’t be safe if she did. In her nightmares, her accident hadn’t been an accident at all. Someone had tried to kill her, had caused her disfigurement intentionally when they’d tried to take her life.
She spun around, feeling a bit agoraphobic, anxious to retreat inside to the safety of her hospital room, when she spotted a man exiting the back sliding glass doors of the solarium. He looked huge in the shadows of the door frame, stood well over six feet with muscled broad shoulders, thick dark hair clipped neatly on his high forehead, and he wore a dark suit and tie. He glanced around the property, his stance rigid and determined, then he seemed to zero in on her. Suddenly he moved toward her, his body controlled, yet he reminded her of a black panther stalking his prey.
She froze, frantically searching for some place to run, to hide, but he saw her and was coming closer, and there was no way to elude him. Again, that tingling of recognition rippled through her, as if they’d
met.
He had an odd expression on his face, as if he knew her, too.
* * *
DAMON STARED AT THE WOMAN walking alone in the garden, the blood pumping through his veins. She resembled the woman in the photo he’d just shown Pace.
A faint streak of moonlight illuminated her through the weeping willows, making her look like a petite fleur in the night. Except this fleur had her arms wrapped around herself in a defensive gesture that reeked of pain and fear.
The moment she saw him, she stiffened and began to tremble.
Wavy brown hair fell across her shoulders, slight hints of red and gold shimmering in the moonlight as if it had been finger-painted in. She was small, probably around five-four, slender but with just enough curves to make a man groan. She backed away, butting into the brick wall as he approached. Dressed in a pale blue summer jogging suit, she shouldn’t have looked sexy, but his libido woke up and screamed. Touching her would be pure heaven to his tortured soul.
He hesitated, had to regroup. He was here on business, to save his brother, not react like a teenager in lust toward a jolie fille.
Her fragile stance alerted him to the fact that she was quite afraid of him. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said in a deep, throaty voice. “I’d just like to talk.”
Her breathing quivered, rattling in the tension-laden quiet. In the distance, cicadas sang and frogs croaked, other night sounds of the bayou whistling in the wind.
“You’re the agent from the news report?”
He nodded and removed his badge and ID to show her. So she’d seen the report about Antwaun’s arrest and hadn’t come forward. “Special Agent Damon Dubois.”
“The brother of the man who was arrested?”
He flinched, and her eyes widened. Then she finally lifted her face, and his heart thumped wildly, adrenaline racing through his blood. Bon Dieu!