Tami Hoag - Cry Wolf

Their eyes meet in the dim light of the woods. Predator and prey. Recognition sparks. Realization dawns. Awareness arcs between them. Strange needs commingle. Dark desires intertwine. It is understood that the game will end in death. She opens her arms to welcome it, to end the torment that has haunted her life.

A slim silver blade gleams in the dark…

What followed was death, presented in a way that was disturbingly seductive, poetically artistic, gruesome and graphic, and frightening as hell.

That was his job-to frighten people, to keep them awake nights and tighten their nerves until every sound heard in a lonely house held the potential for unspeakable terror. People called it entertainment, not inspiration. He wouldn't think otherwise. To believe it inspired meant to take responsibility, and everybody knew Jack Boudreaux didn't take responsibility for anyone or anything.

"They say she never met him here."

Jack's head came up, and he looked toward the door, not entirely certain what he was seeing was real. Laurel stood just outside the chipped white door frame, against a background of black. A pale portrait of a woman in a flowing skirt painted with old cabbage roses, a blue cotton blouse with the tails hanging down. She was a vision, an angel, something he should never have touched. Better to have longed from a distance and had her only in his imagination. No one could take that away.

"Madame Deveraux," she said and took a step nearer. "Her wealthy, married lover, August Chapin, built this place for her. Everyone in the parish knew. He flaunted his obsession for her, much to the shame of his poor wife."

Jack found his voice with an effort. "She never met him here?"

"Mr. Chapin, yes. The man she truly loved, no." She walked into the room slowly, lingering by the tall French doors, out of the glow of the desk light. "She loved a man named Antoine Gallant. A no-account Cajun trapper. He refused to set foot in the house Chapin built to house her as a whore. They met in secret in a cabin in the swamp.

"Of course, they were found out. His pride smarting sorely, Chapin challenged Gallant to a duel, which he meant to win by tampering with the pistols. Madame Deveraux learned of the plot just minutes before the duel was to take place. She rushed to warn her love, but the men had already stepped off the distance and had turned to take aim. In order to save Antoine, she hurled herself in front of him and took Chapin's shot herself. She died in Antoine's arms."

She wandered to the old rolltop desk and stood behind it with her hands resting on the high back. Her expression was somber, searching as she slowly scanned the room with her eyes. "I grew up hearing her spirit still haunted this house."

Jack shrugged, avoiding the penetrating stare she turned on him. "I haven't seen her."

"Well," she murmured, "you have ghosts of your own."

Oui. More than you know, angel.

"Someone mentioned Sweetwater today," Laurel said, treading carefully. "You were Tristar's man, weren't you?"

He smiled bitterly and took a bow, backing away from the desk. "C'est vrai, you got it in one, sugar. Jack Boudreaux, star shyster. Wanna bury some poison and get away with it? I'm your man. I can tie the trail in a Gordian knot that loops around and around, and twists and doubles back and dead-ends. Holding companies, dummy corporations, the works." He jammed his hands at the waist of his jeans and stared up at the intricate plasterwork medallion on the ceiling, marveling not at it but at his own past life. "I was so clever, so bright. Working my way up and up, never caring who I stepped on as I climbed that ladder. The end always justified the means, you know."

"In the end, you brought them down."

One dark brow curving, he pinned her with a look. "And you think that makes me a hero? If I set houses on fire, then put the fires out after the people inside had all burned, would I be a hero?"

"That would depend on your motives and intent."

"My motives were selfish," he said harshly, pacing back and forth along the worn ruby rug. "I wanted to be punished. I wanted everyone associated with me to be punished. For what I did."

"To the people in Sweetwater?" she asked cautiously, studying him from beneath the shield of her lashes.

He halted, watching her intently out of the corner of his eye, old instincts scenting a trap. "Where are you trying to lead me, counselor?" he asked, his voice a low, dangerous purr. Slowly, he moved toward her, his gait deceptively lazy, his gaze as hard as granite behind a devil's smile, one hand raised to wag a finger in warning. "What kind of game are you playin', 'tite chatte?"

Laurel curled her fingers into the fabric of her skirt and faced him squarely, her face carefully blank. "I don't play games."

Jack barked a laugh. "You're a lawyer. You're trained to play games. Don't try to fool me, sugar. You're swimmin' with a big shark now. I know every trick there is."

He stopped within inches of her, leaning down, meeting her at her level, his nose almost touching hers. In the soft lamplight his eyes sparkled like onyx, hard and fathomless.

"Why don' you just ask me?" he whispered, his whiskey-hoarse voice cutting across her nerve endings like a rasp. "Did you kill her, Jack? Did you kill your wife?"

She swallowed hard and called his bluff, betting her heart on his answer. "Did you?"

"Yes."

He watched her blink quickly, as if she were afraid to take her eyes off him for even a fraction of a second. But she held her ground, brave and foolhardy to the last. And his heart squeezed painfully at the thought. She was waiting for a qualification, something that would dilute the truth into a more palatable mix.

"I told you I was bad, angel," he said, stepping back from her. "You know what they say, blood will tell. Ol' Blackie, he always told me I'd be no good. I shoulda listened. I coulda saved a whole lotta people a whole lotta grief."

He drifted away from her in body and mind, losing himself in a past that was as murky as the bayou. Wandering across the room, past the heavy four-poster with its sensuous drape of white netting and its tangle of bedclothes, he found his way to another set of French doors and stood looking out into the dark. The wind had come up again and chattered in the branches of the trees, a natural teletype of the next storm boiling up from the Gulf. Lightning flashed in the distance, casting his hard, hawkish profile in silver.

Laurel moved toward him, skirting the foot of the bed. She should have left him. Regardless of the details she was waiting to hear, he was trouble. She may even have had cause to be frightened of him-Jack, with his dual personality and his dark secrets, a temper as volatile as the weather in the Atchafalaya. But she took another step and another, her heart drumming behind her breastbone. And the question slipped past her defenses and out of her mouth.

"What was her name?"

"Evangeline," he whispered. Thunder rattled the glass in the windows, and rain began to fall, the scent of it cool and green and sweet. "Evie. As pretty as a lily, as fragile as spun glass," he said softly. "She was another of my trophies. Like the house, like the Porsche, like crocodile shoes and suits from Italy. It never penetrated the fog that she loved me." He ducked his head, as if he still couldn't believe it.

"She was the perfect corporate wife for a while. Dinner parties and cocktail hours. Iron my shirts and brew my coffee."

Amazed by the sting of his words, Laurel wrapped an arm around an elegantly carved bedpost and anchored herself to it. This woman had shared his life, his bed, had known all his habits and quirks. But she was gone now, forever. "What happened?"

"She wanted a life with me. I loved my work. I loved the game, the challenge, the rush. I was in the office by seven-thirty. Didn't go home most nights until eleven, or one, or two. The job was everything.