Tami Hoag - Cry Wolf

Panic exploded in Laurel, shooting adrenaline through her veins, pumping strength into her arms and legs. She tried to bolt, tried to kick, tried to jab back with her elbows all at once, twisting violently in her captor's grasp. He grunted as her heel connected with his shin, but her satisfaction was small and short-lived as he tightened his hold around her middle.

"Dammit, 'tite chatte, be still!"

As quick as a heartbeat, all the fight in her froze into paralyzing disbelief. Jack. She went limp with relief, and he loosened his hold in response. Jack had come. Jack had followed her. Jack had scared the living hell out of her.

She twisted around in his embrace and smacked his arm as hard as she could with the barrel of the flashlight. "You jackass!" she hissed under her breath. "You scared me near to death!"

Jack jumped back to avoid a second thumping. He scowled at her while he rubbed at the rising welt on his arm. "What the hell are you doin' here?" he demanded in a low, graveled voice.

Laurel gaped at him. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I followed you," he admitted grudgingly, still cursing himself for it. If he hadn't been standing on the balcony when she had crept down the back steps of Belle Rivière… If he hadn't wondered why and let his imagination loose on the possibilities… If he had a lick of sense and the brains God gave a goat, he would have gone back in and sat down to work.

"Why?" she demanded, glaring up at him with fire in her eyes and a smudge of dirt on the tip of her upturned nose.

"'Cause even money said you were gettin' into trouble."

"So what do you care if I am?" Laurel snapped. "You looked me in face this morning and told me in no uncertain terms you didn't want me in your life. Make up your mind, Jack. You want me or you don't. You're in this or you're out."

He set his jaw and looked past her into the dark of the storage space beneath the house. He wanted her. That wasn't the question, had never been the question. The question was whether he deserved her, whether he dared take the chance to find out. The answers eluded him still, lay inside him beneath a dark cloak he hadn't worked up the courage to look beneath. It was easier not to, simpler to let her walk out of his life.

"Why are you here?" he asked again, bringing his gaze back to her.

"Because I think I know who killed my sister." Fingers tightening around the flashlight, eyes locked hard on his face, she took the plunge. "Stephen Danjermond."

Laurel held her breath, waiting for his reaction, praying he would believe her, certain he would not. Needing him to believe her.

Jack blew out a breath, tunneled his fingers back through his hair, feeling as if she had knocked him upside the head with a lead pipe. "Danjermond!" he murmured, incredulous. "He's the goddamn district attorney!"

Laurel's jaw tightened against the first wave of hurt. "I know what he is. I know exactly what he is."

He swore long and fluently. "Why? Why do you think he's the one?"

"Because he all but told me he was," she said, turning her back to him to shine her light under the stairs and to hide the disappointment. "I don't have time to explain. You either believe me or you don't. Either way, I'm going into this house to look for some kind of proof."

Jack took in the rigid set of her shoulders-so slim, so delicate, too often carrying a burden that would have crushed a lesser person. He thought of the burden that had broken her. She had lost everything-her career, her credibility, her husband-because she had believed justice had to win at all cost. And she would fight this fight, too, alone if she had to, because she believed.

Dieu, he couldn't remember if he had ever believed in anything except looking out for his own hide.

Laurel suffered through the silence, refusing to let her heart break. She didn't have the time for it now. Later, after she had figured out a way to nail Danjermond, then she would let herself deal with this. Now she had a job to do, and if she had to do it alone, so be it.

She choked down the knot in her throat and took a step into the space beneath the house. Jack clamped a hand over her shoulder and held her back.

"Hey, gimme that light, sugar. There might be snakes under here."

They emerged on the first floor of the house, through a door tucked under the main staircase. Laurel toed her sneakers off to avoid tracking in sand and dirt. Jack, in boots, opted to dust them off on the legs of his jeans.

The house was dark, all looming shapes and sinister shadows. The smells of lemon polish and cherry-tinted tobacco hung in the air. A grandfather clock marked time in the hall, ticking the seconds away, chiming the half hour. Nine-thirty.

"What are we looking for?" Jack whispered, keeping a hand on Laurel's shoulder in deference to the protective instincts rising up in him.

"Trophies," she answered, shining the narrow beam of the flashlight on the floor. Her breath hitched in her throat as something tall caught her eye near the front door, then seeped back out as she recognized the lines of a coat tree. "We know the killer kept jewelry as souvenirs because he sent some to me. I'm betting he kept some for himself, as well, as keepsakes."

"Jesus."

She shone the light into the front room-a parlor-backed out of the doorway, and continued down the hall, past a small, elegant dining room, past a bathroom. A blocky ginger cat bolted out of the next room and streaked past them, growling, making a beeline for the stairs. Laurel paused to get her heartbeat down from warp speed, then ducked into the room the cat had dashed out of.

Bookcases covered the walls from the twelve-foot-high ceiling to the polished pine floor. Here the scent of Danjermond's expensive tobacco was strongest, the furniture polish an undertone to leather chairs and the faintly musty-sweet aroma of old books. A handsome cherrywood partners desk dominated the floor space. Behind it, an entertainment center held shelves of sophisticated stereo equipment.

Laurel skirted around a wing chair and took a look at the desktop. She was afraid they would have to go upstairs to find what they were looking for. Her instincts told her a killer would keep items that secret, that meaningful, in his most private lair-his bedroom. But a study was a close second, and Danjermond obviously spent a good deal of time in his.

Slipping around behind the desk, she cast the light over a humidor, a tray of correspondence, an immaculate blotter. She slipped two fingers into a brass pull and tried the slim center drawer.

"Damn, it's locked."

Jack scanned the bookshelves by the thin, silvery light from the window, looking for a title that might strike a spark. People often hid things in books. Hollowed them out and filled them with treasures and secrets. He assumed there wasn't time to look through all of them, and searched for a likely candidate instead, but there were no titles like The Naked and the Damned, or The Quick and the Dead, or anything else that might appeal to a twisted sense of humor, just tomes on law and order, classics, poetry.

"Where's Danjermond?" he asked, pulling out a Conan Doyle first edition.

Laurel tried the drawers on the file cabinet with no luck. "Being toasted by the royal order of pearls and girdles as a man they can all look up to and entrust with the chastity of their debutante daughters."

She checked her watch and swore. They needed to find something soon, before the window of opportunity slid closed and locked them inside.

"What happens if we find something?" Jack asked as they climbed to the next floor. "We don' exactly have a warrant, angel. No judge in the country would allow evidence obtained this illegally."

"All I need is one piece," Laurel said as she crept past a small guest room and a linen closet. "Just one damning piece I can take to Kenner and hit him over the head with. He's probably turning your place upside down as we speak. Danjermond is trying to build a case against you."