by Tami Hoag
It was a simple matter of physical needs, she rationalized, needs too long ignored and a handsome man all too willing to rectify the situation.
“You think too much, angel,” Jack said, replacing his cigarette. She was as transparent as glass, working out in her mind a logical excuse for the physical attraction that arced between them like electric sparks. He bumped her glass closer. “Have a drink. Have a good time. Lighten up.”
His philosophy in a nutshell, Laurel thought. She was about to give him her opinion on the subject when Savannah appeared to her right, draped all over the Cro-Magnon pool player like a vine.
“Baby,” she drawled, her gaze fastened hungrily on Mr. Cuestick as she rubbed the flat of her hand over his chest. “Me and Ronnie got plans for the evening.”
She sounded drunk, though they hadn't been in the bar long enough for that to have been the case. Drunk on arousal. Drunk on the need for sex. Laurel sighed and glanced down, finding no relief as Savannah's bare knee came into view—sliding up and down Ronnie's muscular thigh.
“What about supper?” she asked shortly.
“Oh . . . we'll eat later.” The pair of would-be lovers shared a laugh over that, ending the joke with a kiss, open mouths meeting briefly, tongues teasing. Ronnie's hand slid down from the small of Savannah's back to grope her ass, and she groaned deep in her throat.
“Fine,” Laurel murmured, turning to stare at her untouched beer. “Just how am I supposed to get home?”
“Here. You can take the 'Vette.” The keys landed on the bar with a rattle. “I'll get my own ride.”
Another round of salacious laughter. Laurel shook her head.
Savannah caught the action from the corner of her eye. Putting her enjoyment of Ronnie on hold for an instant, she turned her head, taking in the total package of sisterly disapproval.
“Don't knock it till you've tried it,” she said peevishly, forgetting about love, forgetting about Laurel's current state of frailty and her own vow to help her baby sister through it all. Right now her needs were all that mattered, and what she needed most was to get naked with Ronnie Peltier and forget all about her good girl sister and Conroy Cooper and wanting to be something she wasn't. “Loosen up, Laurel. Have a little fun of your own for a change.
“Come on, Ronnie, sweetie,” she said, disentangling herself from him and taking him by the hand to lead him away like a prized stallion. “Let's go.”
Laurel didn't turn to watch her leave. She sat staring at her drink, staring at Savannah's key ring with the little rubber alligator hanging from it by his tail. The gator looked up at her, jaws open, with a tiny boot lying on its red tongue. It was supposed to be a joke, but she didn't feel like laughing. There wasn't anything funny about people being swallowed up—by alligators or by their own demons.
The noise level in the bar suddenly seemed to increase in volume, the clank of glasses, the noise of the jukebox, the sounds of voices all becoming too loud for her ears. She grabbed the keys and pushed herself away from the bar.
Outside, the protesters had gone, and the news van with them. There was no sign of Savannah and Ronnie Beefcake. Out on the bayou someone was fishing among the spider lilies and water lettuce along the far bank. The sky that had been a fine clear blue earlier was now striped with clouds tumbling up from the Gulf. The wind had come up as well and shook the heart-shaped leaves of a redbud tree that grew at the edge of the parking lot, flipping them inside out.
Laurel stood for a long moment beside the door of the Corvette, just staring across the bayou, wondering if she'd made a mistake in coming back here. Time away had somehow softened memories of Savannah's penchant for self-destruction. The lure of familiar faces had outweighed the potential for resurrecting old pains, old guilt.
“It's not your fault, Baby.”
“But he doesn't hurt me.”
“You're lucky and I'm not, that's all. Besides, I'd never let him hurt you. I'd kill him first.”
“Killing's wrong.”
“Lots of things are wrong. That doesn't stop people from doing them.”
She raked a hand through her hair and rubbed at the tension in the back of her neck. She should have stayed home, stayed in the quiet seclusion of the courtyard at Belle Rivière. Maybe she could have talked Savannah into it, and they would still be there now as afternoon edged toward evening, sipping iced tea and lounging on the chaises, talking of nothing important. Or she could have taken her sister up on the idea of shopping. Anything would have been better than this outcome.
The if onlys piled up one atop the other, adding to the pile she'd started as a child, like live coral settling on dead to form a reef. The layers below were thick with remorse, hard with guilt. If only she had stopped Daddy from going out in the field that day . . . If only she could make Mama see the truth . . . If only she could make the attorney general believe . . .
If only she weren't so powerless, so weak . . .
She hung her head and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she was staring at the foot pedals of the Corvette—all three of them—and yet another wave of impotence crashed through her. She had never learned to drive a standard transmission.
“Come on, angel,” Jack said as he materialized beside her. She shied away from him, but not before he slipped the keys from her limp fingers. He tossed them up in the air, catching them with one hand, and grinned like a pirate. “Let's go for a spin.”
Chapter
Six
He hopped over the door and settled easily into the driver's seat, his graceful hands smoothing over the leather-wrapped steering wheel. Huey bounded over the passenger door and sat in the bucket seat, head up, mismatched eyes bright, ears perked, alert, and eager for adventure.
Laurel rushed around the hood of the car. “Get that mangy hound out of my sister's car!” she demanded, yanking the door open. She tried to shoo the dog, but he only thought it was a game and yipped at her and wagged his tail in Jack's face as he play-bowed and batted a big paw at the hand she was waving.
“Get out, you flea-bitten, garden-digging, contrary mutt!” She leaned into the car and tried to haul him out bodily, straining and swearing as the dog wriggled and twisted and got his head up in her face and started to lick her.
“Uck!” Laurel jumped back, wiping slime off her face, shooting a glare at Jack. “You could be a little more helpful.”
He shrugged and grinned. “He's not my dog.”
A growl rumbled between Laurel's teeth. Huey gave her an incredulous look, whined a little, and jumped out of the 'Vette. Jack laughed, amused by her pique and glad to see something in her expression other than the bleakness that had been there a moment ago as she'd stood looking out at the bayou.
He had followed her out of the bar, intrigued by her reaction to Savannah's sudden “date.” After the way she'd torn into Jimmy Lee Baldwin, he fully expected to see her chasing her sister down to give her what-for. He hadn't expected to see her standing by the car looking lost and in pain.
Not that that was the reason he had stepped forward and taken the keys from her hand. He wanted to put the Corvette through its paces, that was all. He had given up his Porsche when Evie died. It was too much a symbol of the attitude that had led to her death. He didn't miss the car, but he sometimes missed the raw power, the feel of a sleek machine jumping beneath him, hugging the curves, roaring down the highway. His Jeep got him where he was going, but there was nothing quite like a hot sports car for unleashing something wild in a man.
That was the reason he had snatched the keys from Laurel's hand. It wasn't because he wanted to offer her any kind of comfort. Hell, he wasn't even sure what her problem was. And he didn't want to know. He didn't get involved. If she had a beef with Savannah's taste in men—which encompassed almost the whole of the gender—then she would just have to take it up with Savannah. All he wanted from her was a little fun and the chance to study an intriguing character.
She stood looking at him with stern exp
ectation, her small hand extended. “The keys, Mr. Boudreaux.”
He had already put the key in the ignition and looked down now, flicking the little alligator into motion. “But you can't drive this car, can you, sugar?”
“What makes you say that?”
“'Cause you would'a left already. Hop in. I'll drive you home.”
“I have no intention of going anywhere with you. Give me the keys. I'll walk home.”
“Then I'll walk with you,” Jack said stubbornly. He pulled the keys back out and stuffed them into the pocket of his jeans as he climbed out. “Pretty ladies shouldn't go walking 'round these parts alone just now,” he said, giving her a look of concern he would never admit to. “But I'll warn you, sugar, Savannah's gonna be none too pleased to hear you left her pet 'Vette in the parking lot at Frenchie's. There ain't liable to be nothin' left come morning.”
Laurel heaved a sigh and weighed her options. She could ride home with Jack Boudreaux, or she could walk home with Jack Boudreaux. There was no reliable taxi service in Bayou Breaux; a town where people were seldom in a hurry to get anywhere didn't warrant it. She didn't know anyone else at Frenchie's to ask for a ride home, and Aunt Caroline wasn't likely to be back from Lafayette to come and get her.
“Women shouldn't accept rides from men they barely know, either,” she said, easing herself down in the bucket seat, her gaze fixed on Jack.
“What?” he asked, splaying a hand across his bare chest, the picture of hurt innocence. “You think I'm the Bayou Strangler? Oh, man . . .”
“You could be the man.”
“What makes you think it's a man? Could be a woman.”
“Could be, but not likely. Serial killers tend to be white males in their thirties.”
He grinned wickedly, eyes dancing. “Well, I fit that bill, I guess, but I don' have to kill ladies to get what I want, angel.”
He leaned into her space, one hand sliding across the back of her seat, the other edging along the dash, corralling her.
That strange sense of desire and anticipation crept along her nerves. If she leaned forward, he would kiss her. She could see the promise in his eyes and felt something wild and reckless and completely foreign to her raise up in answer, pushing her to close the distance, to take the chance. His eyes dared her, his mouth lured—masculine, sexy, lips slightly parted in invitation. What fear she felt was of herself, of this attraction she didn't want.
“It's power, not passion,” she whispered, barely able to find her voice at all.
Jack blinked. The spell was broken. “What?”
“They kill for power. Exerting power over other human beings gives them a sense of omnipotence . . . among other things.”
He sat back and fired the 'Vette's engine, his brows drawn pensively as he contemplated what she'd said. “So, why are you going with me?”
“Because there are a dozen witnesses standing on the gallery who saw me get in the car with you. You'd be the last person seen with me alive, which would automatically make you a suspect. Patrons in the bar will testify that I spurned your advances. That's motive. If you were the killer, you'd be pretty stupid to take me away from here and kill me, and if this killer was stupid, someone would have caught him by now.”
He scowled as he put the car in gear. “And here I thought you'd say it was my charm and good looks.”
“Charming men don't impress me,” she said flatly, buckling her seat belt.
Then what does? Jack wondered as he guided the car slowly out of the parking lot. A sharp mind, a man of principles? He had one, but wasn't the other. Not that it mattered. He wasn't interested in Laurel Chandler. She would be too much trouble. And she was too uptight to go for a man who spent most of his waking hours at Frenchie's—unlike her sister, who went for any man who could get it up. Night and day, those two. He couldn't help wondering why.
The Chandler sisters had been raised to be belles. Too good for the like of him, ol' Blackie would have said. Too good for a no-good coonass piece of trash. He glanced across at Laurel, who sat with her hands folded and her glasses perched on her slim little nose and thought the old man would have been right. She was prim and proper, Miss Law and Order, full of morals and high ideals and upstanding qualities . . . and fire . . . and pain . . . and secrets in her eyes. . . .
“Was I to gather from that conversation with T-Grace that you used to be an attorney?” she asked as they turned onto Dumas and headed back toward downtown.
He smiled, though it held no real amusement, only cynicism. “Sugar, ‘attorney' is too polite a word for what I used to be. I was a corporate shark for Tristar Chemical.”
Laurel tried to reconcile the traditional three-piece-suit corporate image with the man who sat across from her, a baseball cap jammed down backward on his head, his Hawaiian shirt hanging open to reveal the hard, tanned body of a light heavyweight boxer. “What happened?”
What happened? A simple question as loaded as a shotgun that had been primed and pumped. What happened? He had succeeded. He had set out to prove to his old man that he could do something, be something, make big money. It hadn't mattered that Blackie was long dead and gone to hell. The old man's ghost had driven him. He had succeeded, and in the end he had lost everything.
“I turned on 'em,” he said, skipping the heart of the story. The pain he endured still on Evie's behalf was his own private hell. He didn't share it with anyone. “Rogue Lawyer. I think they're gonna make it into a TV movie one of these days.”
“What do you mean, you turned on them?”
“I mean, I unraveled the knots I'd tied for them in the paper trail that divorced them from the highly illegal activities of shipping and dumping hazardous waste,” he explained, not entirely sure why he was telling her. Most of the time when people asked, he just blew it off, made a joke and changed the subject. “The Feds took a dim view of the company. The company gave me the ax, and the Bar Association kicked my ass out.”
“You were disbarred for revealing illegal, potentially dangerous activities to the federal government?” Laurel said, incredulous. “But that's—”
“The way it is, sweetheart,” he growled, slowing the 'Vette as the one and only stoplight in Bayou Breaux turned red. He rested his hand on the stick shift and gave Laurel a hard look. “Don' make me out to be a hero, sugar. I'm nobody's saint. I lost it,” he said bitterly. “I crashed and burned. I went down in a ball of flame, and I took the company with me. I had my reasons, and none of them had anything to do with such noble causes as the protection of the environment.”
“But—”
“‘But,' you're thinking now, ‘mebbe this Jack, he isn't such a bad guy after all,' yes?” His look turned sly, speculative. He chuckled as she frowned. She didn't want to think he could read her so easily. If they'd been playing poker, he would have cleaned her pockets for her.
“Well, you're wrong, angel,” he murmured darkly, his mouth twisting with bitter amusement as her blue eyes widened. “I'm as bad as they come.” Then he flashed his famous grin, dimples biting into his cheeks. “But I'm a helluva good time.”
The light had not yet turned green, but he floored the accelerator, sending the Corvette lunging forward like a thoroughbred bolting from the starting gate. A pickup coming down Jackson had to skid sideways to avoid hitting them. Its driver stuck his head out the window and shouted obscenities after them. Laurel grabbed the armrest and gaped at Jack. He laughed as he shifted the car, feeling wicked, feeling reckless. Miz Laurel Chandler needed some shaking up, and he was just the guy to do it.
They barreled down Dumas, the business district a blur. Laurel cut a glance toward the courthouse, fully expecting to see beacons flash on one of the parish cruisers in the parking lot, but they shot past without incident and headed toward the edge of town. Past the brick town houses, past the shrines to Mary, past the cutoff to L'Amour, past Belle Rivière, and into the country, where planters warred with the Atchafalaya for control of the land.
Apprehension
clutched Laurel's stomach. She had taken a calculated risk getting in the car with Jack Boudreaux, but she thought her logic had been sound. Now other possibilities flashed in her mind. Maybe the killer hadn't been smart, just lucky. Maybe Jack was just plain crazy. Nothing he'd said or done so far in their short acquaintance could have convinced her otherwise.
God, wouldn't that be just the way? She would have survived every rotten thing that had happened in her life to date, fought her way through a breakdown, only to be done in by a disbarred lunatic.
She pushed the fear aside and let anger take hold.
“What the hell are you doing?” she yelled, twisting toward him on her seat. The needle on the speedometer had gone out of her range of vision.
“Taking you for a ride, angel!”
He pushed a cassette into the tape player, then settled back in his seat, right hand resting lightly on the steering wheel, left arm propped on the door frame. Harry Connick, Jr., blared out of the speakers—“Just Kiss Me.” The road stretched out before them like a ribbon, flat and snaking around canebrakes and copses of trees, skipping over fingers of Bayou Breaux. Driveways to plantations blinked past, and the countryside grew wilder with every second.
Laurel looked behind her, toward rapidly retreating civilization, and kicked herself mentally for taking such a ridiculous chance.
“I don't want to go for a ride! I want to go home!” she shouted, smacking Jack hard on the shoulder with a fist. “Turn this car around right now!”
“Can't!” he called back to her.
“The hell you can't!”
Jack started to shoot her another grin, but swallowed it as she reached into her purse and pulled out a gun.
“Jesus!”
“Stop the damn car!”
She looked mad enough to shoot him. Her dark brows were drawn together in a furious scowl, her mouth pressed into a thin white line. Her glasses were slipping down her nose, and the wind was tearing at her hair and making her blink, but none of that negated the fact that she had a stainless steel Lady Smith clutched between her dainty little hands.