Tami Hoag - Cry Wolf

Laurel ground her teeth and cut a look Danjermond's way, wondering why the hell he didn't do something. "I never said Baldwin killed anyone. I just thought you might like to know-"

"That he's some kind of pervert. A preacher." Kenner snorted his derision and shook his head as he pulled hard on his smoke. "What was it up in Georgia? A dentist? A banker? Is there anyone you don't suspect of being a pervert?"

"Well, I doubt you are," Laurel snapped, coming up out of her chair. She planted her hands on Kenner's littered desktop and met him glare for glare. "Why should you resort to perversity when you obviously have a license to fuck over anyone you want!"

While Kenner snarled and foamed at the mouth, her gaze cut again to Danjermond, who had the gall to be amused with her. She could see it in the translucent green depths of his eyes, in the way the corners of his mouth flicked upward ever so slightly. He roused himself from his stance against the file cabinets and came forward, turning his attention on Kenner.

"Now, Duwayne," he said calmly. "Miz Chandler came in here with the best of intentions. If she believes she has information pertinent to the case, you ought to listen."

"Pertinent to the case!" Kenner made a contemptuous sound in his throat and smashed out his cigarette in the overflowing plastic ashtray. "Savannah Chandler says the preacher gets off on tying women up. Savannah Chandler. Jesus, everyone in town knows she's got screws as loose as her morals!"

Fury misting her vision red, Laurel all but dove for his throat. "You son of a bitch!"

Kenner shrugged. "Hey, I'm not saying anything that idn't common knowledge."

"But you're not saying it very tactfully," Danjermond pointed out, frowning.

"Shit, I don't have time to be David Fucking Niven. I've got a murder to solve." He snagged another Camel from the pack and lit it with a match, his gaze hard on Laurel. "Leave the investigating to me, Ms. Chandler."

"Fine," Laurel said through her teeth. "But it would probably be helpful if you would take your head out of your ass so you could see to do it."

Kenner's color deepened to burgundy. He snatched his cigarette from his lip and shook it at her, raining ash down on his desktop and the drift of papers strewn across it. "You want a little advice on where you might find your sister? I wouldn't look any farther than a few dozen bedrooms."

"And that's what you would have said about Annie Gerrard, too, isn't it?" Laurel felt a little surge of triumph as the hit scored. A muscle flexed in Kenner's jaw, and he glanced away. "Yeah, Annie liked to sleep around a little. Look where they found her."

Kenner turned his back on her and stared out through the slats in the crooked venetian blind. Danjermond came around the end of the desk and caught her gently by the arm. "Perhaps it would be better if you and I discussed this in my office, Laurel."

Gracefully, he turned her toward the door and ushered her into the outer office, where Kenner's secretary, Louella Pierce, sat with nail file in hand, absorbing every detail of the melee so she would be able to relate it blow by blow to everyone in the break room. A couple of uniformed officers looked up from the paperwork on their desks with smirks on their faces.

Adrenaline still pumping, Laurel glared at them. "What the hell are you looking at?"

Eyebrows shot up as heads ducked down. Danjermond continued into the hall without pause, herding her along. His grip on her arm seemed deceptively light, but when she tried to discreetly pull away, she couldn't.

"I'll thank you to let me go, Mr. Danjermond," Laurel said softly, angrily, her eyes flashing fiercely as she looked up at him. "I didn't appreciate your little Good Cop-Bad Cop routine back there. I'm not some wide-eyed civilian walking in here with a head full of gossip."

"No," he said calmly, never altering his stride or his expression, but there was something hard in his gaze as he glanced down at her. "You're a former prosecutor with a reputation for making allegations you can't back up. How did you expect him to react?"

There was considerable activity in the hall. Court was in session, but in addition to the usual cadre of attorneys and clerks and stenographers, there were reporters hovering like vultures, waiting for some meat on the latest of the Bayou Strangler's cases. Laurel sensed their presence. Her stomach tightened, and the hair on the back of her neck rose as she felt eyes turn her way-eyes that brightened with feral anticipation at the sight of her walking arm in arm with the parish's golden boy district attorney. Just as in old times, they homed in, scrambling to switch on tape recorders, fumbling for pencils and notebooks. They came forward in a rush, sound bursting out of them like a television that had suddenly been turned on high volume.

"Mr. Danjermond!"

"Ms. Chandler!"

"-is there any connection-?"

"-are you aiding in the investigation-?"

"-have there been any new leads-?"

Danjermond walked on, calm as Moses strolling through the Red Sea. "No comment. We have no comment to make at this time. Ms. Chandler has no comment."

Hating herself for it, Laurel leaned into him and let him take the brunt of the media storm. He guided her into his outer office, and while he dealt the press a final, frustrating "No comment" at the door, she made a beeline past the curious gaze of his secretary and went into the quiet of his inner sanctum.

The details of the office penetrated only peripherally-hunter green walls, heavy brass lamps, dark leather chairs, the smell of furniture polish and cherry tobacco, a place for everything and everything in its place. The shades were drawn, giving the room the feeling of twilight. The mood of the room may have soothed her, but she was too caught up in the churning memories and emotions and self-recriminations. The way she had lost her temper with Kenner was too reminiscent of scenes from Scott County-fights with the sheriff, tirades unleashed on her assistants and colleagues.

She gulped a breath and stopped her pacing, bringing up both hands to press them against her temples. As in a dream, she could see herself tearing her office apart, wild, ranting, throwing things, smashing things, screaming until her assistant, Michael Hellerman, had called in Bubba Vandross from security to come and subdue her.

After months of riding that mental edge, she had gone over. She wasn't on the brink now, but she was damn close. The frustration of trying to deal with Kenner pushed a button. She had no control over him, and control was the one thing she had needed most since her father had died.

And then the press. God, would she never escape the loop of recurrences? If she had gone to Bermuda instead of Bayou Breaux, would she now be standing in the magistrate's office, embroiled in some island intrigue?

She let out a shuddering breath and tried to let go some of the tension in her shoulders. She needed to regroup, to think things through. She needed to find Savannah and dispel the dark shadows lurking in the back of her mind.

She ran a hand over the soft leather of her pocketbook, thinking of the odd trinkets she had dropped into it-the earring, the necklace, the matchbook. She had shown none of them to Kenner, knowing he would only have taken them as further proof of her mental instability. They might have come from anywhere. They might all have been Savannah's.

The matchbook lingered in her mind. Jack turning it over with his nimble musician's fingers. His expression going carefully blank at the sight of the name. A leather bar in the Quarter. Secretive, seclusive, exclusive. A place where masks were commonplace and anything might be had for a price or a thrill. He had been there doing research for a book.

He had pinned her arms above her head, held her down as he joined their bodies…