Tami Hoag - Cry Wolf

"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.

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 amp;M."

S amp;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 throw 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.