Snakebit

by Linsey Lanier

  He studied the lock on the door. He couldn’t get to it from the inside, but he certainly could unscrew that handle. If he could do it in time.

  Selecting the tool most shaped like a screwdriver’s head, he set to work.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Miranda stared at the snake in the case as it slowly slithered over the red leather cover of Duval’s ledger.

  There had to be a way to get to that book. It was right there in front of her eyes. All it would take was a little bit of nerve. Okay. A lot of nerve. But she could do it.

  She had to.

  She looked around and spotted a long-handled hook leaning against the bookshelf on this side of the room. Must be what Duval used to clean the cage—or take Beelzebub for a walk. She stepped over to the shelf, picked up the rod, and turned back to study the case.

  At the top of the enclosure was an opening. For air, she supposed. It was covered in thick mesh to prevent the creature inside from escaping. No way to pull it up. But now that she was this close, she could see the glass on the front of the case served as a door. All she had to do was slide it open and she’d have access to the interior.

  It appeared to be the only way in. It wasn’t complicated. Slide the door open, remove the snake, get the book, and return Beelzebub to his quarters. But how to use the hook? Maybe she could hold down his head and then get the book. She thought about Dr. Quigley at the zoo.

  She hadn’t seen him remove a snake from its enclosure, but she remembered all the caution signs in that back room, the emergency alarms to pull if someone got bit accidentally. Getting a snake out of its case had to be tricky. Maybe she should look up how to do it in that encyclopedia on the shelf.

  There wasn’t time.

  Then she noticed something. The plastic door handle had a loop where a padlock of some kind should have been. It wasn’t there. A warning bell went off in her head. Was this a trap?

  Certainly Baptiste had put the ledger book in with his snake for a reason. But he wasn’t here. Parker was keeping him occupied downstairs.

  And she was so close to that book. She couldn’t give up now.

  Slowly she reached up and put her hand on the handle. “Hi there, fella. Want to go for a walk?”

  As if he understood her, the snake raised its head, rattled its tail, and stared straight at her with its beady little eyes.

  Her breath caught.

  And then she heard the office door swing open behind her.

  She spun around in time to see an even bigger snake—Baptiste Duval standing in the doorway.

  He seemed huge. Taller than she knew he was. Sturdy and muscle-bound, he had the stature of someone who worked out a lot. In his dark silk-and-leather he seemed even more sinister than he had on the casino floor a few minutes ago. The chains sparkled around his neck. On one wrist a thick bracelet of gold glistened. Altogether his copper skin, his jewels, his shoulder-length ringlets, his satiny clothes gave off a sheen that made him seem like a gaudy ghost from another world.

  A monster.

  She shoved the hook behind her back and waved a hand in front of her face. “Oh, you startled me.”

  Baptiste eyed her, then the snake.

  She laughed and nodded toward the case. “Friendly little fellow isn’t he?”

  “My pride and joy,” he said in a thick Cajun brogue.

  Right now he should have been asking, “Why are you in my office?”

  His eyes said he already knew.

  That wasn’t good. But she wanted to ask the same question. What was he doing here? He was supposed to be watching Parker downstairs, making sure he wasn’t cheating. If Parker hadn’t been able to keep him at the craps table, then something had gone wrong.

  Keep up the ruse, she told herself. “We’re on a scavenger hunt. I’m supposed to bring back a snake egg. Pretty stupid, huh?” She giggled as if she’d had too much to drink.

  “Extremely.” He stepped toward her. He reached for a lock of her fake hair. “I must say, you look interesting as a blond.”

  She pretended to be insulted. “You don’t think I’m a natural?”

  “Well, you were a brunette in the photos I’ve seen of you in the newspapers. Weren’t you, Ms. Steele?”

  Her stomach sank down as if the ship had just hit a monstrous wave.

  Baptiste Duval knew who she was. She’d assumed he hadn’t seen the stories that had been in the papers about her and Parker. She’d assumed they could get his book and be out of here before he discovered them.

  She’d been wrong. She’d underestimated him—badly. With a sinking feeling she realized that meant he knew who Parker was, too.

  What had the bastard done to him?

  Duval tapped the case. “Would you like to pet him?”

  Her mouth went dry.

  Inching closer to the desk, she squeezed the handle of the rod she still had behind her back. Maybe she could fight him off with it. There wasn’t enough room to do that now. He was standing too close. She was wedged between the desk and the credenza. But if he opened the case, maybe she could get a better angle on him. Maybe she could get to that book.

  Without waiting for an answer, Duval slid the glass door of the case open. He moved to the bookshelf, opened a long narrow drawer, and took out another snake hook.

  Now, Miranda told herself. Now’s your chance. But with the snake’s door wide open, her feet were glued to the floor.

  Baptiste’s eyes had a poisonous, sadistic glow as he returned to the case. “Did you know in the voodoo religion, the snake represents wisdom and is a protector of children?” Slowly he slipped the hook under the middle of the rattler’s body, lifted him up and took him out of the case.

  Heart pounding, Miranda pressed herself against the wall. Trapped between the case and the desk, she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think.

  Baptiste passed the coiling thing in front of her, not more than a foot away from her face. Holding the snake suspended in the air, he reached inside the case and took out the book. Then as easily as he’d taken him out, he put him back and shut the door.

  Miranda thought her heart was going to burst. It was all she could do just to stare at the insane man.

  He lifted the contents of his hand. “This is what you are after, no? As you know, one of my own recently betrayed me. She broke into my office and saw this book.”

  Swallowing, Miranda found her voice. “How do you know that?”

  His smile turned condescending. “Casinos always have surveillance equipment. My camera is hidden right there.” He pointed to the painting of the naked lady with the boa crawling around her.

  Miranda thought of that phrase she’d heard down in the casino. Snakebit. Out of luck.

  “I think this was the passage she read the other morning.” He opened the book, turned a few pages and began to read.

  “ ‘Last night I had a meeting with Maman in her office’.” He gestured at the furniture. “This room used to be hers. ‘She told me a secret, one she had kept from me for years. And when she did, the Anger came over me. The red magic, the evil loa, according to a voodoo priestess. The spirit that Duval tried to beat out of me so many times. It did not work. The magic in me was more powerful than ever. And on that night it took possession of me, of my body, of my soul, of my hands as I slid them around Maman’s neck and choked the life out of her’.”

  He snapped the book closed. “Satisfied?”

  The words he’d read made her shiver with revulsion. She eyed his powerful shoulders, the strong sinews of his hands. They were strong enough to kill a woman like his mother. A woman like her. Like now.

  But she had her martial arts skills and a hook in her hand. Except now he had one, too. Plus he had Beelzebub, his watch snake.

  No matter what happened she had to know the truth. She swallowed back her nerves and pushed for more. “What was the secret?”

  He smiled as if that was exactly the question he wanted her to ask. “The one my mother told m
e that night?”

  She met his dark gaze. “Was it that you had a brother?”

  Surprise flitted over his face, then his eyes went flat. “Very astute, Ms. Steele. Yes, she told me I had a twin brother.”

  “An identical twin.”

  “Yes.” He slid the book onto his desk, just out of her reach. “She told me she’d taken me from him when we were very small. He grew up and now lived in Atlanta.”

  “You killed her for telling you that?”

  “He was rich. He was famous. His father—my father—loved him.”

  And didn’t love Baptiste, or so he’d convinced himself.

  “He had a good life, while I was raised by a whore. Duval, the man I thought was my father, despised me. I thought, why couldn’t I have my real father? Why couldn’t I have my brother’s life instead of mine? If he had been the one my mother had taken when she left my father, I would have.”

  Jealously. Pure, simple jealously. “How did you find your brother?”

  “It wasn’t difficult. I looked in the newspapers and on the internet. With a little research I discovered he was a director at the zoo in Atlanta. Director of Herpetology. He was so like me. He looked just like me. He had a fondness for snakes, just as I did. He traveled the world in search of the most exotic species. I could have had such a position. I almost thought about introducing myself to him. For a while I indulged in a dream of becoming close to him. I thought about all we could share together. And then I realized he would never have anything to do with someone like me.”

  Miranda waited, not daring to interrupt his rambling.

  “His name was Dr. Clarence Boudreaux. Boudreaux. The name I was given when I was born. The name I had never known. The name my mother took from me. I went to the zoo in Atlanta and found him. I followed him home. It was a beautiful home. A cozy little house with a lovely yard and a pretty blue roof in a neighborhood called Virginia–Highland.”

  That was Dr. Boudreaux’s house all right.

  “I watched him for a week, making sure none of the neighbors saw me. I learned he had a beautiful wife to go with his beautiful home. A very smart wife. A medical researcher. I could see he loved her, but he was angry with her for some reason. Or she was with him. I saw them arguing in the driveway. Then I read his lips and saw him say, ‘We’ll talk about it when we get back from the conferences’.”

  He could read lips? What had he seen her saying to Parker downstairs? They’d never stood a chance against him. But in Virginia-Highland he’d seen exactly what the neighbor across the street had seen. Dr. Boudreaux fighting with his wife.

  “Something began to gnaw inside me. Why should he have that life, while I had the one I did? Why should he have that woman? So smart, so sophisticated, while all I had was the whores? I had no one to talk to who would understand me. Not a woman. Not him. He would never be a brother to me.”

  Miranda held her breath.

  “They were both going away. I saw an opportunity to even the score. To set things right. I followed the doctor to the downtown hotel. It was a herpetology conference.”

  He paused to stare through the glass at Beelzebub.

  “I disguised myself and got a room under a false name. I lingered in the lobby, longing to go in and hear some of the presentations. And then I saw him leave. Making sure he didn’t see me, I followed him out. He went back to the zoo and returned to his car with a case. I recognized the case and knew it held a venomous snake of some sort. He took it back home, brought it inside his house, then he returned to the hotel.”

  Exactly as Clarence said he had.

  “I didn’t know what to do next. But the Anger, the evil loa, was building inside me. What had my brother done to deserve such accolades? Wasn’t I just as good as him? I watched his house, imagining all sorts of things I wanted to do to him and his wife. And then, that Sunday morning, my brother’s wife came home from her conference and drove into the driveway alone. I knew this was my opportunity.”

  Here it came. The truth at last.

  “Did you know they kept an extra key under a flower pot near the front door? How quaint. How clichéd. How easy they made it for me. But I had a better plan. I returned to the hotel in my disguise and found my brother at a bar having a wine spritzer with his colleagues.”

  “You drugged him,” Miranda dared to say.

  Baptiste smiled as if proud of it. “He never even saw what I slipped into his glass.”

  Was that what he’d done to Parker downstairs?

  “I saw him stumble back to his hotel room, and when he was inside, I took off my disguise and put on a pair of gloves. I went out to his car, hotwired it and drove back to his house. I unlocked the door, slipped inside the house and saw my brother’s wife lying in bed asleep in their bed. In the corner, the case with the snake sat on a table covered by a blanket. It took the blanket off and watched the creature.

  “It was a western taipan. My brother must have brought it back from Australia. It was so beautiful. So deadly. So powerful. For a long time I watched its long brown body glisten as it moved. I felt its power seep into me.

  “I turned back to the woman, moved over to her, lay down beside her. I remember her sigh when I slipped my arm around her. She thought I was my brother.”

  “You made love to her.”

  “I did. For a few moments I was my brother, living his life with this beautiful woman. And then, as if she wanted me to carry out my plan, she fell asleep again with a smile on her face.”

  He was sick. Completely insane.

  “For a moment or two, I watched the taipan, but I knew I couldn’t linger. I saw the snake hook against the wall. It was very like this one.” He lifted the crooked rod in his hand. “I opened the case, took out the serpent, and simply tossed him on the woman. She woke up instantly and screamed. ‘Don’t fight it,’ I told her. ‘It’s your destiny.’ She did fight, of course. They all do. She flailed at the fangs coming toward her. The taipan bit her several times—more than he would if she’d lain still—before he crawled away. I watched her face as she began to gag, to vomit, to turn blue. It was a delicious sight. When she was still, I left the house, locking the front door behind me.”

  “And after that?”

  “I returned my brother’s car to the hotel parking lot, went back to the house in my own vehicle and waited. He came home a few hours later. They were muffled, but I could hear his screams and cries out on the street. They made me laugh. I watched the police come, the crime scene truck arrive, all the neighbors coming out, asking what had happened in their quiet little neighborhood. I saw the police take my brother out of the house and put him in the back of a squad car. I watched it drive away. And then I drove back to the hotel, took off my gloves, and went to sleep in my room. The next morning I woke up and drove back to this casino to start my new life as its master. But I followed my brother’s trial in the newspapers, the futile appeals his lawyer attempted, his sentencing. I have been waiting ten years for the final act. Let’s see. What time is it now?” He consulted a clock on a shelf in the bookcase and laughed. “In less than twenty-four hours my brother will be dead, and my revenge will be complete.”

  Not if she could help it.

  She had his confession. Unfortunately it wasn’t in Labatte’s police station with a recorder and witnesses.

  The ledger book was still on the desk. She could reach it if she tried. At least it would get Duval away from Beelzebub’s case. Was it worth the risk? There wasn’t another option. Now or never.

  She lunged for it.

  Her fingers landed on the book just as Duval’s snake stick came down on her forearm with a snap. It stung like hell.

  “Ow.”

  Now she was mad. She raised the rod in her right hand and smacked it against his back like a whip.

  His eyes blazed with that evil spirit he’d talked about. “How dare you strike me?” He lifted the cane off her arm and raised it high to deliver a heavy blow.

  Before he could, Mirand
a threw her arms around his body. She hugged him, bearlike, widened her stance, and twisted his torso to the side, trying to knock him over.

  He fought back with the strength of a bear. She rolled onto the desk, pulling him over on top of her. The edges of the book jabbed through her dress straps and into the bare flesh of her back. She gritted her teeth against the pain and held on as tight as she could. She tried to strike him again, but he grabbed her arm with his free hand and held it down. With the other hand he swung the cane wildly.

  The hook wiped past her face, nearly catching her eye.

  “You might as well surrender,” Duval hissed. “You can never win against me. No one can.”

  Oh, was that so?

  She bent a knee, trying to maneuver her leg under his stomach. There was no hope of getting to her gun. Not yet. But if she could knock him on the floor, away from the snake case, she could snatch the book and run. Maybe get a shot off, if she were lucky.

  She grunted and moaned, working her knee under him a bit at a time. Duval sensed what she was doing, pivoted and countered. But she was faster.

  She’d just slipped her knee under his groin and was about to jam it into the sweet spot when the office door burst open.

  “Steele!”

  Wesson’s voice.

  Miranda turned her head in time to see Wesson stumble into the room with Gregor’s orange tattooed head behind her.

  “Leave her alone.” Wesson lunged forward, instinctively coming to her aid.

  In one swift move Gregor shut the door behind him, grabbed her arm and held a gun to her head. “Don’t do it, pretty one.”

  Now Miranda was the one who’d been distracted. As soon as she turned her head, Duval escaped her knee and levered his snake rod across her throat. He snatched the one out of her hand and tossed it in the corner.

  He laughed, his breath, smelling of Creole sauce and whiskey, fluttering in her face. “I believe that’s all of you, no?”

  No, it wasn’t. “Where’s Parker? What have you done with him?”

  “I have confessed enough to you tonight. Right now I have something to show you.”