Tami Hoag - Cry Wolf

Jack suddenly moved toward him, and Jimmy Lee swung the heavy, unwieldy brandy bottle. He did so with gusto, imagining the mess it would make of the Cajun's head, but he missed badly, throwing himself off balance in the process.

Jack ducked the blow easily. Quick and graceful as a cat, he stepped around Baldwin, caught hold of the preacher's free arm, twisted it up high behind him, and ran him face-first into the rough plaster wall. The bottle fell to the floor and shattered in tinkling shards, the last of the brandy soaking into Baldwin's wingtips.

"I told you once to leave Laurel Chandler alone," Jack growled, his mouth a scant inch from Baldwin's ear. "You shouldn't make me tell you twice, Jimmy Lee. Me, I don' have that kind of patience."

Jimmy Lee tried to suck in a watery breath. His face was mashed against the nubby plaster, and he was sure he'd chipped at least three of his precious caps. While the blood pounded in his head and spittle bubbled between his ruined teeth and down his quivering chin, he damned Jack Boudreaux to hell and plotted a hundred ways to torment him once they were both there.

"I mean it, Jimmy Lee," Jack snarled, jerking his arm up a little higher and wringing a whimper out of him. "If you give her another moment's trouble, I'll rip your dick off and use it for crawfish bait."

He gave one last little push, then stepped back and dusted his palms off on his thighs as Baldwin stood, still facing the wall, doubled over, clutching his arm.

"Hope I don' see you 'round, Jimmy Lee."

Jimmy Lee spat on the floor, a big gob of blood and saliva flecked with fragments of porcelain. "God damn you to hell, Boudreaux!" he yelled around the thumb that was feeling gingerly for the sorry condition of his caps.

Jack waved him off and walked out and away from the bungalow.

"I don't want to know one thing about it," Laurel said as she came toward him from the base of a huge old magnolia tree. "If I don't know anything, I can't be called to testify."

"He'll live," Jack said sardonically. They walked toward the vehicles they had left on the scrubby lawn beside Baldwin's beat-up Ford. Huey sat behind the wheel of Jack's Jeep, ears up like a pair of black triangles, mismatched eyes bright. Jack shot Laurel a sideways glance. "You okay?"

Laurel gave him a look. "What are you doing here, Jack? Two hours ago you weren't even willing to give me a straight answer, let alone ride to my rescue."

He scowled blackly, caught in a trap of his own making. He should have stayed the hell out of it, but as he sat at his desk, smoking the first pack of Marlboros he had allowed himself in two years, trying to conjure up a violent muse, he hadn't been able to get the image out of his head-Laurel charging at Baldwin with the courage of a lion and the stature of a kitten. Baldwin was a con man, but that didn't mean he wasn't capable of worse, and try as he might to convince himself otherwise, Jack couldn't just stand back and let her take a chance like that alone.

"I followed you," he admitted grudgingly. "I don' want to get involved, but I don' want to see you get hurt, either. I've got enough on my conscience."

Too late for that, Laurel thought, biting her lip. He had hurt her in little ways already. He would break her heart if she gave him the chance, and damn her for a fool, some part of her wanted to give him that chance. Knowing everything she knew about him. Even after everything they had said in his kitchen. She couldn't think of his tenderness in the night, of the vulnerability that lay inside that tough, alley-cat facade, and not want to give him that chance.

"Why, Mr. Boudreaux," she said sardonically, gazing up at him with phony, wide-eyed amazement, "you'd better watch yourself. One might deduce from a statement such as that one that you actually feel concern for my well-being. That could be hazardous to your image as a bastard."

"Quit bein' such a smart-ass," he growled, his expression thunderous. "I didn't like the idea of you comin' out here alone. Ol' Jimmy Lee, he might not be as harmless as he seems, you know."

"He might not be harmless at all," Laurel muttered, turning her gaze back toward the shabby little bungalow.

Reverend Baldwin was into kinky sex and bondage, and he had an ugly temper. He also had a near-perfect cover. Who would ever suspect a preacher of murder?

"Murder." The word made her shudder inside. She had come here looking for her sister, and now she was thinking of murder. She wouldn't begin to allow the two subjects near each other in her mind. In any regard.

"Well, whatever your reasons, thank you for coming."

They seemed beyond the formality of thanks, and it hung awkwardly between them. Laurel pushed her glasses up on her nose and shuffled toward her car. Jack shrugged it off and curled his fingers around the door handle of the Jeep.

"Where you goin' lookin' for trouble next, angel?" he asked, calling himself a fool for caring.

"To the sheriff," she said, already steeling herself for the experience. "I think he and I need to have a little chat. Want to come?"

It was a silly offer. She had no business feeling disappointed when he turned her down, but she didn't want to break the fragile thread of communication between them. Foolish. Even as she chastised herself, her fingers snuck into her purse and came out with the red matchbook. She offered it to him, simply to feel his fingertips brush against hers.

"Would you happen to know anything about this place?"

Jack's expression froze as he stared down at the elaborate black mask and the neat script title. "Where'd you get this?"

Laurel shrugged, her mouth going dry as his tension was telegraphed to her. "I found it. I think Savannah left it in my car, but she wouldn't admit it was hers. Why? What kind of place is it?"

"It's the kind of place you don' wanna go, sugar," he said grimly, handing it back to her. "Unless you like leather and you're into S amp;M."

Kenner lit his fifth cigarette of the day and sucked in a lungful of tar and nicotine. His eyeballs felt as if they'd been gone over with sandpaper, his vocal cords as if they'd grown bark. He had ice picks stabbing his brain and a stomach full of battery acid disguised as coffee. In comparison, a rabid dog had a pleasant attitude. He was getting nowhere with the Gerrard murder, and it pissed him off like nothing else-except maybe Laurel Chandler.

He stared at her through the haze of smoke that hovered over his cluttered desk, his eyes narrowed to slits, his mouth twisting at the need to snarl.

"So you think Baldwin killed your sister and all them other dead girls?"

Laurel bit back a curse. Her fingers tightened on the arms of the visitor's chair. "That isn't what I said."

"Hell, no," Kenner barked, shoving to his feet. "But that's what you meant."

"It is not-"

"Jesus, I've been just waiting to hear this-"

"Then why don't you listen?"

"-haven't I, Steve?"

Danjermond, lounging against a row of putty-color file cabinets, tightened his jaw at the shortening of his name. Kenner didn't notice. He'd been looking for an excuse to blow off some steam. First someone had the balls to kill a woman in his jurisdiction. Then he'd had to let Tony Gerrard walk. Then every hoped-for lead had piddled into nothing. Now this. He let his temper have free rein, not giving a damn that Laurel Chandler was connected. Ross Leighton himself said the girl was a troublemaker, said she always had been.

"I've just been waiting for you to come charging in here, pointing fingers and naming names."

"I'm only trying to give you information. It's my civic duty-"

"Fuck that, lady." He cut her off, leaning over the desk to tap his cigarette off in the ashtray. "You're trying to make trouble, same as you did up in Georgia. Point your finger, shoot your mouth off, get your name in the paper. You get off on that or something?"