by Sala, Sharon
LaDelle covered her mouth to smother her gasp of surprise. She glanced down at her daughter, then back at her sister.
“Do you think Anson had anything to do with her disappearance?”
Claudette shrugged. “Mama Lou said he would seek revenge. She did not say how.”
Delle shook her head and then covered her face.
Claudette saw tears coming down between the fingers and pulled her hand away from her face. “Do not hide your tears, sister. It is not your shame.”
“It’s all my shame. I married him, even when Mama said no and when you said no. I wouldn’t hear anything I didn’t want to hear.”
Claudette smoothed the hair away from Delle’s forehead. “That is because you were listening with your heart. It is not your fault you fell in love with a bad man.”
“But it’s my fault I stayed.”
Claudette shrugged. “Life takes us down our path. All we can do is follow to see where it leads.”
“Thank you for coming to my aide,” Delle said. “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
“We are family, Delle. I would have it no other way. Are you in pain?”
Delle nodded.
“I will bring your medicine.”
“Are you staying here with us until Brendan returns?”
“Yes,” Claudette said and then quickly left the room.
LaDelle glanced toward the windows. Even though the curtains were closed, she could see flashes of lightning and hear the rain pounding against the glass. They were safely sheltered here, in Brendan’s home, but they would never really be safe as long as her husband was alive.
****
Chub Walton was out of New Orleans and headed home when the first clap of thunder ripped across the sky, followed by a bright shaft of lightning off to the West. He’d gotten out of the city just in time.
He gave his too-silent passenger a nervous glance. Either the bitch was still unconscious or playing him and waiting for a chance to escape. He should have duct taped her hands and feet, but he’d been in such a hurry to get away he hadn’t taken the time. He thought about pulling over and taking the precaution, but he wanted to be inside before the storm hit, so he kept driving. It didn’t matter if she did wake up. She was so small he could restrain her easily with one hand behind his back.
He wondered about the fire and how much of the French Quarter would go up in flames before they put it out. He didn’t have a personal connection one way or the other with the city, and once he did the little blonde, he was considering moving on. He’d been here in New Orleans for almost a year—through two other abductions. It felt like it was stretching his luck if he stayed after this. He liked being around the water and had always wanted to see Galveston. Maybe Texas would be next on his list.
Even though he thought he’d gotten away clean, he kept glancing up in his rearview mirror for flashing lights. Thunder rumbled again, and the closer he got to home, the faster he drove. He was coming around a curve when he caught movement from the corner of his eye. All of a sudden, there was a cow standing in the middle of the road, staring blindly at his oncoming headlights.
He stomped the brakes and swerved, which sent the SUV into a skid. It was as if everything began to happen in slow motion. He could hear the sound of squalling tires and smelled the acrid scent of burning rubber. He was moving past the cow now, coming so close he could see the wild look in her eyes. If the window had been down, he could have reached out and touched her black nose. When he finally came to a stop, his back wheels were in the ditch and the cow was nowhere in sight. The only sign he had that she’d ever been there was a fresh pile of steaming cow manure.
“Scared the shit out of me, too,” he muttered, then realized the girl was no longer in the seat beside him.
He saw her crumpled up in the floorboard, still unconscious. He grabbed her by the back of her collar, hauled her up onto the seat to feel for a pulse, and when he felt the steady thump beneath his fingers, he relaxed. The party wasn’t over yet.
He put the SUV in gear, eased out of the ditch and back onto the blacktop, and headed for home, this time paying more attention to where he was going. By the time he took the turn-off onto the dirt road, he was breathing easy.
He had just pulled up into the yard when the storm front hit. The rain was so loud and sudden it made him jump. The keys fell from his hand into the floorboard and he wasted another minute fumbling around until he found them. It was raining so hard he couldn’t see the front porch, but he knew it was there. He opened the door and jumped out. He grabbed the girl beneath her arms and dragged her out on her back, then threw her over his shoulder and made a run for the house. It was only a few steps to the porch, but it didn’t matter. They were already soaked to the skin. His hands trembled from anticipation as he unlocked the door and went in. He locked it behind him and turned on the lights.
****
The rain woke her. Julie thought she had fallen in the river because there was water on her face and up her nose. Just when she was about to choke, the water went from her face to the back of her head. She didn’t know she was hanging upside down until the a sudden burst of light. She saw a man’s butt and legs, smelled cold coffee, burned toast, and the stench of wet clothes on an unwashed body. That’s when she remembered the fist coming at her and the glimpse of the man behind it.
Her first instinct was fight and the second was flight. She screamed, grabbed the back of his belt with a sudden yank, and pulled herself up and over his shoulders, going headfirst toward the floor.
Chub was so startled by the sound and the unexpected motion that it took him a few seconds to realize she was no longer in his grasp. By the time he turned around, she was on her feet and staggering.
“Well, well, the little princess finally woke up,” he said and lurched toward her.
Julie dodged his hand, slapping it sideways with a karate chop at his arm, followed by one at his throat, which sent him reeling, and then he made a run for the door.
She heard a roar of rage, and then his hand was in her hair, pulling her backward.
“Nooooo!” she screamed, still kicking and fighting until he grabbed her by the throat and shut off her air.
He kept slapping her and shaking her while telling her in no uncertain terms what he was going to do to her, and she was getting light-headed. Any moment she was going to pass out and then she would be at his mercy.
God, please take me now. I don’t want to be alive when this happens, and then everything went black.
****
Brendan followed Marco and Deuce into the station, dripping water as he went. He was numb, too afraid to let himself think what Julie might be enduring. He walked into the waiting area and noticed Grayson and his wife, Lana, were sitting apart from the others. Brendan gave them a cursory glance, trying to judge the temperature of the room before going farther, unaware he’d just sent Lana March into emotional rewind.
When Lana saw him walk in, soaking wet with clothes stuck to him like a second skin, her reaction was visceral. She knew who it had to be. All of a sudden, she was in high school again, behind the bus barn at a high school football game having crazy-mad sex with Anson Poe while the crowd was going wild for her boyfriend, Grayson’s, athletic prowess.
Oh, fuck. That has to be Brendan Poe. No wonder Juliette is attracted to him. He’s even more beautiful than his father ever was.
She was so rattled she grabbed a tissue and covered her face, as if weeping for her daughter’s plight.
Brendan’s gaze went from her to the other bartenders, but when he realized Toni was crying, his legs nearly went out from under him. What did they know that he didn’t?
“Jack? Is there news?”
Jack looked up, then jumped to his feet and ran to him, thumping him heartily on the back.
“Good work, son. Good work! They have a name and address, and are on their way to the location as we speak.”
Brendan staggered, then backed into the ha
ll and turned away. He didn’t want them to see him cry.
Jack followed, standing beside Brendan as he wept, unaware Grayson had walked out into the hall behind them.
“I knew the man was bad news,” Brendan said. “I should’ve been there.”
“You were doing what I sent you to do, and then did what no one else thought to do. You chased after them. It was timing, Bren, timing.”
Grayson walked up behind the pair, curious to what they were saying. “What did you see? Did you find a witness?”
Grayson March was the last person Brendan wanted to talk to, and yet he turned to face him, tears mingling with the water running out of his hair onto face.
“I found friends on the street and started asking questions. Michelle from The Candy Basket said Count LeGrande was out during that time. I went looking for him and found an old blues man who plays guitar on the corner. He told me he saw LeGrande going toward the riverfront right after we shut down the bar. My aunt Claudette, who’s taking care of my mother and sister, knew where he lived. I found LeGrande because of all of them.”
Grayson was impressed in spite of himself.
“So LeGrande saw it happen?”
“No. It wasn’t that easy, but I kept pushing, talking to him about everything he might have seen, and when I described the abductor, that’s when it clicked. LeGrande didn’t know his name, but said he saw a man fitting that description go into the bar every night, and come out right before closing. He said the man always stood in a nearby alley and watched us leaving the bar. He knew what he drove and he knew the tag number. That’s what I gave the cops.”
The knot of guilt in Grayson’s gut was getting tighter. He had to apologize.
“Look, Brendan, I owe you an apology. What I said before… it was just in the heat of the moment. You understand.”
Brendan’s expression was emotionless.
Grayson kept talking. “I know the bar is gone, but I’ll build it back and your job will be—”
Brendan took a step back, but not in fear. It was a subconscious move to put more distance between them.
“You keep your fucking job and I’ll save you the trouble of firing me, because I quit. You said you spoke in the heat of anger, but it was your truth. I cannot make the fact of my birth go away. You’ve made it painfully clear you don’t want me anywhere near your gold-plated world. Point taken. And in the spirit of fair play, you leave me and mine the hell alone, too.”
He walked back into the room, leaving Grayson and Jack in the hall.
Jack’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t feel so good about you, myself. All this time I had it in my head that you were my friend, but it’s been brought to my attention tonight that it’s not so. I think it’s time I walked away from the job, too. My heart’s not in it anymore.”
Jack followed Brendan back into the room, leaving March to stew on his guilt alone, and the worst of it was March still didn’t know if he was losing Julie, too.
Chapter Eight
Julie came to, tied spread-eagle and naked on a bed. The troll was standing at the foot of it watching her while slapping the side of his leg with a cat-o’-nine-tails.
Whap. Whap. Whap.
There were beads of sweat on his upper lip, and a flush of sexual anticipation on his face as kept up the rhythm.
Whap. Whap. Whap.
“So, you’re finally awake.”
Her stomach lurched, but it wasn’t from being naked in front of a dangerous pervert or that he was obviously getting ready to use that whip on her. The worst part of it was that she was still alive.
Whap. Whap. Whap.
She thought about begging or offering him any amount of money if he’d just let her go. But she didn’t. It took every ounce of courage she had to stay silent, watching him grin as he circled the bed, his black eyes narrowing as he moved closer, wanting her to get the full of effect of the slap of leather against denim.
Whap. Whap. Whap.
In spite of her determination to remain stoic, with the first sweep of the whip toward her face, she whimpered like a dog with a butt full of buckshot.
As soon as he saw the fear on her face, he began hitting himself harder.
WHAP. WHAP. WHAP.
Chub frowned. He liked it better when they screamed. Maybe he needed to give her something to cry about, enough to make it hurt, but not enough to break the skin. He raised the cat-o’-nine-tails over his head and brought it down across her inner thigh.
Her scream was as sharp as the radiating pain in her body, and then it faded to a guttural moan. A faint streak of blood was rising just beneath her skin. She heard him giggle as he did an antsy two-step then slapped himself a little more.
Whap. Whap. Whap.
The smell of his sweat, mingling with the stale air in the house, was as sickening to her as the stench of her own fear. The coppery taste of fresh blood was in her mouth as she realized she’d bitten her tongue. His face was a blur now, but she knew where he was from the repetitive slap of the whip against his thigh. Never in a million years had she imagined this was how she would die.
“Not so tough now, are you, bitch?”
WHAP. WHAP. WHAP.
She blinked past the tears until she could see him again. He was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, slapping the cat-o’-nine-tails harder and harder against his leg, breathing deeper and heavier, moaning now between blows.
His excitement was building. It was only a matter of time before he began raping her and he wouldn’t be gentle. It would hurt her far worse than the whip. When he began trading lashes from the whip—one for him, one for her—she lost her mind, screaming for mercy, writhing away from the snaky strips of leather and pulling so hard against the ties that bound her to the bed that her wrists and ankles began to bleed.
She shrieked. “Bastard!”
He hit her. WHAP.
And then himself. WHAP.
Harsh, choking sobs burned the back of her throat as she cursed him yet again.
“Sick, perverted son-of-a-bitch!”
WHAP.
The next blow of the whip was across her face, which finally sent her into blessed oblivion.
She came to again, choking and gasping for air when he threw water in her face. This time he was naked. She wouldn’t look at his erection because she couldn’t bring herself to face what would come next.
“Got nothing more to say?” he asked and brought the cat-o’-nine-tails down hard on the mounds of both breasts. Bloody welts rose within seconds, although, yet again, he had not broken the skin.
She moaned, trying desperately to form words, but her lips were too swollen to move.
He raised the whip just as another clap of thunder shattered the silence and he brought the whip down across her face.
“Hell of a night to die, ain’t it, bitch?”
****
Detective Carson was riding shotgun with a Parish police officer and cursing the weather. Once they’d turned off the blacktop, the dirt road had turned into a thick, mucky gumbo.
“Can’t you go any faster?” he asked, thinking of the time that had elapsed since Juliette March had been taken.
“Not without going in a ditch.”
“Just don’t get us stuck,” Carson muttered.
“It’s four-wheel drive, sir. We aren’t going to get stuck,” the officer countered.
Carson glanced in the side-view mirror at the phalanx of parish and police cars behind them. They were running without lights and sirens so as not to alert him to their arrival.
“How much farther?” Carson asked, trying to see through the rainfall and the constant swipe of windshield wipers.
“We’re almost there,” the officer said, and then all of a sudden, he slammed on the brakes. “I take that back. We’re there,” and came to a sliding stop directly behind a black SUV.
Their headlights caught on the muddy license tag as Carson peered at it through the pouring rain.
“That’s the ca
r!” he shouted as the other cruisers began pulling up. They cut the headlights and killed their engines in unison.
Carson jumped out on the run with a search warrant in his pocket and a gun in his hand, while the others began circling the property.
There was a light on in the living room and another one at the far end of the house. A deputy had already moved to that light source, hoping for a glimpse inside the room. All of a sudden the deputy spun away and started running toward Carson. Even in the downpour, it would have been impossible to wash away the look of horror on his face.
“She’s in there, sir! Bloody as hell, tied spread-eagle to a bed.”
“Take it down!” Carson ordered and stepped back as a pair of officers took a battering ram to the front door.
It went down with the first blow and suddenly the house was full of police, all running toward the light at the back of the house.
****
Chub heard the thud as his front door hit the floor, but was too excited to focus on the fact the noise wasn’t part of the storm. By the time he heard the thunder of running feet, it was too late. He spun toward the bedroom door just as it flew back against the wall. Police swarmed the room—yelling at him to put his hands behind his head and screaming for him to get down.
When two officers tackled him, he lost his erection and the cat-o’-nine-tails at the same time. He hit the floor screaming obscenities while they rolled him onto his belly, handcuffed his hands behind his back, and dragged him backward from the room. He had one last glimpse of the bloody woman on his bed and then he was gone.
Carson had seen plenty in his twenty-plus years on the force, but was shocked by what Chub Walton had done. As horrific as Juliette’s wounds appeared, the irony of the moment was Carson’s subconscious need to hide her naked body, as if the worst that had happened to her was the nudity, itself.
“Cut her free and cover her up!” he ordered, then pointed at one of the officers. “Go tell the paramedics the scene is clear and get them in here, STAT.”