Tami Hoag - Cry Wolf

Tony swept the pictures off the table with a cry of anguish, then turned and vomited on the floor, his guts wrenching at the images flashing through his head.

"Annie! Oh, God, Annie!" he cried, the sobs tearing up from his heart. He rose in a half crouch, doubled over by the terrible pain of loss, and stumbled away from the table to sink down on his knees in the corner.

Kenner frowned and sighed. He picked up the snapshots, careful not to look at them, and slipped them back in the folder. The hot, acidic scent of Tony's stomach contents burned his nostrils, but that wasn't what left the bad taste in his mouth.

He had wanted Gerrard to be guilty, had honestly believed he could have committed the crime. A confession would have justified what he had just put Tony Gerrard through. It was a hell of a lot more gratifying to torment a guilty man than a grieving husband.

"You're free to go," he said in a low voice, then let himself out of the room.

The next door down the hall opened, and Danjermond walked out looking cool and composed, unaffected by what he had seen through the two-way glass.

"My God, you're a ruthless bastard," he drawled mildly.

Kenner watched him straighten a shirt cuff and align his onyx cuff link with the top stitching. "No," he said. "Whoever killed Annie Delahoussaye-Gerrard is a ruthless bastard. I just mean to catch him."

Danjermond glanced at him from under his brows. "You don't think Gerrard is guilty?"

He shook his head as he dug a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and hung it from his lip. "You saw him."

"He could be acting. Or perhaps what we witnessed was abject remorse."

"If he's acting, then he deserves the goddamn Academy Award." He struck a match and cupped his hands around his cigarette as if he were standing outside in a stiff wind. To banish the sour taste and smell that lingered in his senses, he drew the smoke deep into his lungs and exhaled through his nostrils. "I got a call in to the sheriff in St. Martin Parish, where they found that last dead girl. A hundred says the same piece of shit did this one."

He tossed his match down on the floor and ground it to shreds with the toe of his boot. "I'll catch the son of a bitch," he swore. "Nobody does this in my parish and gets away with it."

The very corners of Danjermond's mouth curled in a sardonic, unamused smile. "I appreciate your attitude. Killers running around loose don't do my career any good, either."

Kenner shot him a hard look, his eyes mere slits in his lean, leathery face. "Fuck your career, Danjermond. I got a wife and two daughters. This maniac comes sniffing around my turf, I'll tear his goddamn throat out."

He turned and headed for his office. Danjermond fell in step beside him, his stride fluid and graceful beside the sheriff's cowboy swagger. "Our constituents can be grateful you have the sensibilities of a pit bull, Sheriff."

"Yeah, and I'm mean enough to take that as a compliment." He glanced through the window into his office and pulled up short of the door, a headache instantly piercing his temples as he caught a glimpse of Laurel Chandler's profile through the venetian blind. "Shit. This is all I need. She's probably here to tell me Jimmy Lee Baldwin did it."

Danjermond gazed between the slats of the blinds, taking in the feminine lines of Laurel Chandler's face and the determined set of her chin. She sat in the chair beside Kenner 's desk with her legs crossed, and bent as he watched to scratch a spot on her stockinged calf. "She does have a reputation for being… dogged."

Kenner snorted and stubbed his cigarette out in the dirt of a potted orange tree that sat beside his secretary's desk. "She has a reputation for causing trouble, and I don't want any more than I've already got."

Laurel emerged from her interview with Kenner feeling like she'd just gone three rounds with Dirty Harry. How the man had ever won an election was beyond her. He certainly hadn't gone the route of charming the voters. More likely they had been afraid not to vote for him. A territorial sort, he'd torn into her first for invading his office. Then had come the "I have better things to do" speech. He calmed down only marginally when she explained herself, explained that the Delahoussayes didn't understand procedure and only wanted someone to act as go-between on their behalf.

Grudgingly he gave her the barest of details concerning the investigation. Because of the priority nature of the case, the autopsy was already being performed. He couldn't say when the body would be released. He wouldn't say if they had any solid physical evidence. No arrests had been made.

"You brought Tony Gerrard in for questioning."

He narrowed his eyes at her. She couldn't even see the pupils. A muscle ticked in his cheek.

"It's common knowledge, Sheriff. This is a small town."

He lit a cigarette and slowly went through with the ritual of shaking out the match and taking his first deep drag. "We brought him in. Had a little chat."

"I suppose you're aware that his wife had had relationships with a number of other men."

"You gonna tell me they all did it? It was a goddamn conspiracy, right? You're big on that kind of bullshit."

"I'm not telling you anything."

She wanted to tell him to do the anatomically impossible, she thought as she marched down the hall. He had her pegged as a head case, and everything she said he twisted into the ineffectual babblings of a hysterical woman. He wouldn't have believed her if she had told him the earth was round. Of course, Neanderthal that he was, he probably had doubts about that anyway. A nasty insinuation concerning the species residing in Kenner 's family tree ran through her head, and she smiled a little at the mental image of orangutans with slitted eyes and cigarettes dangling from their nonexistent lips.

"I've seen people convicted on the basis of a smile like that one."

Danjermond stepped out of the water fountain alcove, seeming to materialize out of nothing. Laurel 's heart jolted, but she managed to keep from shying sideways. She looked up at the district attorney, finding the quiet amusement in his clear green eyes both irritating and inappropriate-just as her smile must have looked.

"I should probably be fined at the very least," she said with a rueful look. "Psychic defamation of character."

He tipped his head. "Not on the books in the state of Louisiana."

"Then I'm off the hook as long as Kenner can't read minds."

"I believe his talents lie in other areas."

Laurel sniffed and crossed her arms, allowing a little of her anger to sizzle up. "Yes, I'm sure he's a whiz with a rubber truncheon and thumbscrews, but that's not my idea of a good time."

"No?" Danjermond chuckled, then the sound faded away and a heavy silence fell between them like a blanket of humidity. His gaze turned speculative and held fast on her face, searching, probing. "What is, Laurel?" he asked softly.

Something about his question froze her tongue to the roof of her mouth. She had the feeling, as she looked up into that calm, stunningly handsome face that he was running possible scenarios through his head. Hot, dark, erotic. The air around them seemed suddenly charged with his powerful sexuality. She felt it envelope her, felt it penetrate the skirt and blouse she wore and stroke over the silk beneath. A delicate shiver of arousal rippled through her, followed closely by something like revulsion. She wasn't sure she understood either.

"We might discuss it over lunch," he said quietly, his gaze lingering on her mouth, as if he were imagining watching her lips close over a red, ripe strawberry. He stroked the fingertips of one hand along the stylish silk necktie he wore, smoothing it with a lover's caress. His voice softened to the texture of velvet. "Or after."