by Tami Hoag
“Oh, I am working on it, Laurel,” he said softly, his green eyes shining as if he had sole possession of a wonderful secret. “Rest assured, I will have enough evidence to get a conviction. More than enough.”
He let that promise ring in the air for a moment, then changed directions so smoothly and quickly, Laurel thought it was a wonder she didn't lose her balance. “Are you coming to the dinner tonight?”
“No,” she said, appalled that he might think she would even consider it. “After all that's happened recently, I'm sure you understand that I'm not feeling up to it.”
“Of course,” he murmured, reaching into an inside jacket pocket to extract a long, slim cigar. He trimmed the end with a pocket-size device, snipping it cleanly and efficiently. “I understand completely. You've lost your sister. The best suspect we have is your lover—”
“What about Baldwin?” Laurel snapped, an odd, niggling feeling of panic fluttering in her stomach. “What about—”
“He isn't intelligent enough,” Danjermond said sharply, cutting her off with his look as much as his words. His eyes were as bright and fervid as gemstones beneath the dark slash of his brows. “He's a petty con man with delusions of grandeur. Do you really believe he could have committed crime after crime without implicating himself?”
“I think there's enough evidence to suspect him—”
“Then you haven't been paying attention, Laurel.” He shook his head almost imperceptibly, his eyes never letting go of hers. “You disappoint me,” he whispered.
Slowly, almost sensuously, he slipped the tip of the cigar between his lips. Laurel watched, feeling oddly mesmerized, vaguely nervous. He dipped a hand into his pants pocket and came out not with the wafer-thin gold lighter, but with a book of matches.
A bloodred book of matches.
Laurel caught only glimpses of black lacework script beneath his meticulously manicured fingers as he went about the ritual of lighting the cigar, but somehow, she didn't really need to see the name of the bar. Her heart pounded in her throat, in her head. Nausea swirled through her, and she curled her fingers tighter over the edge of the car door.
“This killer is brilliant, Laurel,” he said softly, smoothly. “Brilliant, careful, strong. Strength is essential for success in his avocation. Strength of mind, strength of will.”
Laurel said nothing. Her eyes were glued to the matchbook. Already her brain had hit the denial stage. It couldn't be. There was an explanation. He'd taken it from the purse Kenner had confiscated.
Or he was a killer and he wanted her to know it.
Danjermond puffed absently on his cigar, turning the folder of matches over in his fingers like a magician warming up for a sleight of hand routine.
“Le Mascarade,” he murmured. “Where no one is quite what they seem. We all wear masks, don't we, Laurel?” he asked, lifting a brow. “The trick is finding out what lies behind them.”
He slipped the matchbook back into his pocket and strolled away, cherry-scented smoke curling in his wake like mystical ribbons.
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
Laurel sank down sideways on the seat of the BMW, her feet still on the concrete of the parking lot. All the questions, all the fears, swirled in her brain like a dirty, foaming whirlpool. Fragments of conversations, of feelings, of thoughts, bobbed and floated on the rest, one rising above the others—“You believe in evil, don't you, Laurel?”
“Oh, God. Oh, God,” she murmured as she sat there shaking, remembering the flash of lightning, the rumble of thunder, those clear green eyes on hers across the dinner table at Beauvoir. Tears flooded her eyes, and she raised her trembling hands to press them over her face.
It couldn't be. Stephen Danjermond was the district attorney. The League of Women Voters was giving him a dinner. He was sworn to uphold the law.
“Not everyone is what they seem, Laurel. You should know that. You should think about that.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
He was a man above suspicion. Above reproach. From one of the finest families in New Orleans. She had to be wrong. She had to be. The matchbook was a coincidence.
“Le Mascarade . . . We all wear masks, don't we, Laurel? The trick is finding out what lies behind them.”
“Le Mascarade . . . It's the kind of place you don' wanna go, sugar. Unless you like leather and you're into S&M.”
S&M. Bondage. Annie had been tied up. Savannah had been—
She clamped a hand over her mouth as her stomach heaved. She bent over, putting her head between her knees, and gagged as terrible images flashed behind her eyes. Blood. Pain. Screams. Delicate wrists straining against their bonds. Blood, so much blood. There was nothing in her stomach to come up, leaving her choking, coughing, as her body did its best to reject the possibilities that continued to bombard her.
Stephen Danjermond. District Attorney Danjermond. The golden boy. The favorite son. Destined for great things. What if he really was the killer?
And she was the only person who knew.
Laurel Chandler. The prosecutor who cried wolf.
No one would believe her. Not in a million years.
And he damn well knew it.
Cold sweat slicked over her face and her body, sour with the scent of fear. She dragged a hand across her forehead and into the damp tendrils of her bangs as she sat up and leaned heavily against the back of the seat. Funny, she thought, without the least trace of humor, she had actually been holding up pretty well in spite of everything. Savannah's death had devastated her heart, but mentally she had hung tough. Dr. Pritchard would have been proud. Until now. Stephen Danjermond had stood back and watched her fight, watched her hang on to her strength, then with no more effort than he would use to swat a fly, he stepped out of the shadows and knocked her legs completely out from under her.
“Right and strength don't always coincide.”
Was that what this was all about? A contest between justice and the laws of nature? A game? “Does he want you to catch him, Laurel? Or does he want to show you he can't be caught?” Was this what he had been alluding to when he had spoken of the two of them working together?
Or was she imagining things?
He had made her uncomfortable from the moment they had first met, but that wasn't a crime. She'd been under a terrible strain lately, hadn't eaten, hadn't slept. As she sat there panting for breath in the stagnant heat, the sounds of traffic rumbled in the background like the murmur of a distant ocean, someone stepped out of Bentley's Small Engine Shop across the street and hollered for Sonny. An indigo bunting fluttered down from the branches of a magnolia tree to poke its tiny head in an abandoned McDonald's bag in hopeful search of crumbs.
Beautiful little bird, she mused, her thoughts breaking into desultory chunks. It was decorated with gaudy, bright colors—yellow-green, violet-blue, red—that made it look as if an artist had flung paint at it with verve and abandon. How could anything that pretty just happen along for her to see if she had just been confronted by a murderer?
“Then you haven't been paying attention, Laurel. . . .”
“This killer is brilliant. . . .”
“What do you think of sharks, Laurel?”
Sharks moved silently, swiftly, cutting through the deep water, disturbing nothing until they struck. When they killed, they killed brutally, efficiently, completely without mercy or remorse.
“Serial killers are the sharks of our society. . . .”
Nerves trilled at the base of her neck. Memory stirred. The feel of a gaze in the dark. Eyes without a face. As her skin crawled and pebbled with goose bumps, she turned and looked out through the windshield at the courthouse. From a second-story window he looked down at her, knowing she saw him, knowing she could do nothing to stop him. She had no evidence he was a killer.
“You need evidence, Laurel. . . .”
The matchbook was all she had that could link him in any way. There was no law against having a red book of matches. At any rate, he could th
row them away, say he'd never had them. It would be her word against his. No question who would win that contest. Besides, she couldn't prove who had left the matches in her car. There was no doubt there would be many prints—her own, Savannah's, Jack's.
Jack's.
“The best suspect we have is your lover. . . . Rest assured, I will have enough evidence to get a conviction. More than enough.”
“Oh, God,” she whispered, her throat nearly closing on the words. “He's building a case against Jack.”
The notion hit her like a sledgehammer, literally knocking her back in her seat. No one would have better access to hard evidence than the real killer. No one would be more adept at building a case than Stephen Danjermond. The politically ambitious Stephen Danjermond.
The sense of dread and disgust seeped deep into her bones as she considered the implications. What better feather in his cap than successfully convicting a man for crimes that had terrorized South Louisiana for a year and a half? A sensational crime. A sensational trial. A defendant whose name was known across America as the Master of the Macabre.
The press would have a field day. Danjermond would be hailed as a hero. Lifted up on the shoulders of the people of Acadiana without their ever suspecting there was blood on his hands. The case could take him anywhere he wanted to go.
Unless someone stopped him.
He'd thrown the gauntlet at her feet. He had chosen her as his adversary, then turned his back on her and sauntered away as if he didn't have a care in the world, as if he knew she didn't have a chance in hell of besting him. He was bigger, stronger, his mental skills honed to a razor's edge. He was admired and adored. And she was the woman who cried wolf, small and weak, her credibility in tatters, her battle skills rusted and atrophied. The only line of defense between Stephen Danjermond and his future.
If it would have done any good, she would have broken down and cried.
There was enough food in the house to feed an army platoon for a week. The rich, spicy aromas of gumbo and étouffée blended with the milder scents of sundry casseroles with a cream of mushroom soup base and the sweet perfumes of fresh fruit pies and spice cakes. Offerings from neighbors and friends who knew it wouldn't assuage the grief, but brought it anyway to show that they cared.
As she set her purse aside on the hall table, Laurel wondered absently if anyone had taken gumbo or spice cake out to Beauvoir. She supposed someone had. Not these same, salt-of-the-earth folk who had come to comfort Mama Pearl or Caroline's eclectic group of friends, but the women from the Junior League and the Hospital Auxiliary. They would have gone out to deliver their deviled eggs and chicken salad with a thin dose of sympathy. Pained smiles and sugarcoated apologies. Poor Vivian, how terrible to lose a daughter (but at least it was the tacky one). Poor Vivian, you must be beside yourself (it was such a scandalous death). And Vivian would nod and dab at her tears while casting glances askance to see if Ridilia Montrose had put dark meat in her chicken salad.
“Laurel?”
It was all Laurel could do to keep from jumping out of her skin, her nerves were strung so tight. She had hoped to slip upstairs unnoticed. Irrational as the thought was, she was sure her suspicions were written all over her face, that anyone who glanced at her would know what she was thinking and shake their heads sadly over her mental state.
Trying to compose herself, she bent her head and fussed with her glasses as Caroline stepped out of the parlor and came toward her with hands outstretched. Laurel caught her aunt's fingertips and squeezed, but her gaze moved past Caroline to the tall, striking redhead in the dark yellow dress, who came only as far as the doorway.
“Laurel, this is Margaret Ascott,” Caroline said, glancing between them. “Margaret is a friend of mine from Lafayette.”
Margaret sent her a look of genuine sympathy from big dark eyes. “I'm so sorry about your sister, Laurel,” she said in a low voice.
“Thank you,” Laurel murmured, too distracted to care just what kind of friend Margaret could be. All she could think was that she envied Caroline her friend. She would have dearly loved to have someone she could spill her heart out to.
Caroline's brow furrowed in concern. “Darlin', you're as pale as milk. You must be exhausted. Come sit down.”
She couldn't. There was no way she could sit down and pretend she didn't have knowledge of her sister's killer, nor could she tell them—or anyone—yet. No one would believe her, she thought, her heart thudding wildly. Caroline would say she was under too much stress. Others would point to Scott County and say this was just another wild conclusion of an unbalanced mind.
She needed a plan. She needed to make her brain work until all the rust had flaked off and the gears turned swiftly and smoothly.
“Actually, I was thinking I might just go upstairs and lie down,” she said, amazed that she could sound so calm. It was as if her voice and her brain had detached from one another. Her gaze turned to the statuesque Ms. Ascott. “I don't mean to be rude—”
“Not at all,” the woman assured her. “I came to offer support and a shoulder, not to be entertained.”
“Do try to get some rest, sweetheart,” Caroline said, stroking a hand down Laurel's cheek. “And have Pearl fix you a plate to take up with you. You need the nourishment, and she needs to fuss.”
“I'll do that.”
The afternoon passed like a year in prison. Laurel lay on the bed, her body begging for rest, her mind too overloaded and too exhausted to handle all the information it was trying to process. She forced herself to eat and struggled to keep the meal down as her thoughts dwelled on murder and broken trust. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Danjermond. Too handsome, his features too perfect, his smile too symmetrical. Green eyes glowing into hers in a way that seemed not quite human.
But then, if he was what she thought he was, the word “human” didn't really apply. If he had done the things she suspected he had done, then he had no soul, no conscience, and that made him an animal. The most cunning, the most dangerous predator in nature's chain.
Needing facts, she paged through back issues of the Lafayette Daily Advertiser she had dug out of the recycling stacks in the garage, and read and reread everything she could find on the Bayou Strangler case. But the stories were thin compared with the police reports she was accustomed to poring over, and she knew that critical information would have been withheld for official reasons—to weed out real suspects from the poor crazies who confessed to every crime that came down the pike, to allow genuine perps the opportunity to trip themselves up by revealing information that wasn't known to the general public. While the accounts of the killings were gruesome enough, Laurel knew that details had been toned down and left out. The reality of a murder scene, the horror of a corpse that had been abandoned—
God, an abandoned corpse. She closed her eyes against the sting of fresh tears. That was what her vibrant, beautiful, complex sister had been reduced to by Stephen Danjermond.
He had to be stopped, and she had to be the one to do it.
She thought longingly of her Lady Smith languishing in the evidence room of the sheriff's office, thought fleetingly of simply planting it between Danjermond's eyes and pulling the trigger. But she knew it couldn't happen that way.
Proof. Evidence. Her brain hammered on the words, and she got up from the bed to pace and chew the ragged edge of her thumbnail. He would know better than to keep things around that might implicate him. But might his arrogance outstrip his common sense?
He thought he was invincible. She had seen it in his eyes and had read it in profiles of other serial killers. He had run unchecked long enough to make him believe no one could catch him. That kind of power, that feeling of omnipotence, could ultimately be his downfall.
Keeping souvenirs from victims was a common practice among serial killers. She knew he had kept pieces of jewelry because he had given them to her, drawing her into his web without her even knowing it. Did that mean there were more pieces hidden somewhere?
No one knew where the women had been killed, only that their bodies had been transported and dumped. The bodies had been found in five parishes. Most of the victims had been from a parish other than the one where their bodies were found. Clever. He would know that involving multiple jurisdictions would complicate the investigations.
But the most important question was where had the murders taken place. All in one spot, a lair where he felt safe to practice his depravity? If that was the case, she didn't have a prayer of finding it. The area involved encompassed thousands of acres, much of it the wildest, most remote swampland in the United States. It would be easier to find the proverbial needle.
He would never have risked killing in his own home. He would never have risked being seen entertaining any of the women he had killed. They weren't the kind of women a man of Stephen Danjermond's position and breeding would associate with. But he was the sort of man women would trust—handsome, well dressed, well educated. Everyone expected homicide to come wild-eyed and ugly, poor and desperate and ill bred.
“One never really knows what might hide behind ugliness or lurk in the heart of beauty.”
His words rang in Laurel's head as she paced the confines of the room. To distract herself from the emotion that threatened to intrude on her thought processes, she did a mental inventory of the furniture and appointments. Then her gaze homed in on the invitation she had carried up with her from the hall table.
“The Partout Parish League of Women Voters cordially invites you to a dinner . . .”
With special guest the honorable Stephen Danjermond.
He probably hadn't killed anyone in his home, but he may well have brought his trophies there. And he would be out all evening, charming the people who would pave his way to greatness.
“What you're suggesting is against the law,” she murmured, pulling methodically on her earlobe.
She had never broken a law in her life.
She had never lost a sister, either.
She stood there for a long while, chewing contemplatively on her thumbnail, waiting for some solid reason to dissuade her. Some overriding sense of right and wrong. None came, only the memory of Danjermond slipping that matchbook into his pocket and strolling away as if he hadn't a care in the world. He thought he was invincible. He believed he could literally get away with murder. If he succeeded, then there was no justice. No law could overrule that simple truth.