"The Partout Parish League of Women Voters cordially invites you to a dinner…"
With special guest the honorable Stephen Danjermond.
He probably hadn't killed anyone in his home, but he may well have brought his trophies there. And he would be out all evening, charming the people who would pave his way to greatness.
"What you're suggesting is against the law," she murmured, pulling methodically on her earlobe.
She had never broken a law in her life.
She had never lost a sister, either.
She stood there for a long while, chewing contemplatively on her thumbnail, waiting for some solid reason to dissuade her. Some overriding sense of right and wrong. None came, only the memory of Danjermond slipping that matchbook into his pocket and strolling away as if he hadn't a care in the world. He thought he was invincible. He believed he could literally get away with murder. If he succeeded, then there was no justice. No law could overrule that simple truth.
"You believe in evil, don't you, Laurel… And good must triumph over evil…"
"Yes, Mr. Danjermond," she whispered. "It must."
The sun was just setting when she finally slipped from the house. The dinner had begun at eight, but Laurel had been to enough functions of the same ilk to know that, while the baked Alaska would be served by nine, no one would get out of the Wisteria Club before ten-thirty. Then whoever would be usurping Vivian's role for the evening would whisk Danjermond off for drinks and inane small talk with the power elite of the group.
She calculated she would have a solid ninety minutes to search the house and get out safely. Provided she could escape from Belle Rivière without being caught.
Kenner had a deputy watching the house. The massive Wilson, who strolled the grounds like an overprotective Rottweiler. Laurel changed into dark jeans and a navy blue T-shirt, and prowled the balcony, waiting. In the end, Mama Pearl unwittingly came to her aid, coaxing the deputy into her kitchen for coffee and a piece of chocolate stack cake.
With Wilson out of the way, it was a simple matter of creeping down the outer staircase and slipping out a side gate.
Simple… except for the pair of eyes that followed her out of the courtyard and away from Belle Rivière.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Danjermond lived in a gracious old brick house three doors down from Conroy Cooper. Once part of a row of town houses, the building was three stories high and very narrow. The rest of the town houses had long ago fallen to the wrecking ball, leaving this one tall, elegant reminder of more genteel times. The front yard was graced with a pair of live oak heavily festooned with Spanish moss. The interlaced branches of the trees created a bower above the walk to a front entrance that boasted a black lacquered front door with a fanlight above. The only light that glowed in the gathering darkness came from the brass carriage lamp beside the door.
Laurel cut through Cooper's lawn and approached Danjermond's house from the rear, where the properties gradually backed down to the bayou. The neighborhood was quiet, populated primarily by older couples whose families had long since grown up and moved on. There were a few lights in windows up and down the block, but no one was outside to see her slip through a break in the tall hedge that surrounded Danjermond's backyard.
As at Belle Rivière, the small backyard had been paved with bricks more than a century ago and turned into a private courtyard where a small stone fountain gurgled and bougainvillea climbed what was left of the original brick wall. But there the similarities ended. There was no jungle of plant life here, no clutter of tables and chairs. The area had a very spare, austere, almost vacant feel to it. A single black wrought-iron bench sat dead center, directly behind the house, facing the fountain.
Laurel envisioned Danjermond sitting there, staring, contemplating, saying nothing, and a chill crawled over her despite the heat of the night. She had the strangest feeling she could sense his presence here, even though she knew he was away, and the idea of going into his home brought a sense of dread that lay in her stomach like a stone. Her skin was clammy with sweat, making her T-shirt stick to her in spots, drawing mosquitoes that she waved away impatiently as she forced herself to take one step and then another toward the house. She didn't have a choice and didn't have much time. There was no sense in dawdling just because she was spooked.
Even as she thought it, something rustled in the shrubbery at the back of the courtyard, and she whirled, wide-eyed to find-Nothing. A bird. A squirrel. Her imagination. Heart thumping at the base of her throat, she turned back to the house.
The last of the day had faded to black. Stars were winking on in the sky above, but their pinpoints of light did nothing to illuminate the courtyard. The hedge, a thicket well over six feet high, blocked out the surrounding world so completely that Laurel had to remind herself there were people in their living rooms watching television on either side.
The back door was locked. There had been a time when no one in Bayou Breaux would have dreamed of locking a door. Then crime had seeped out from the cities. Then Stephen Danjermond had come.
Nibbling on her thumbnail, she descended the stairs, trying to think of an alternate way in. The front would be locked, as well, not that she could risk going in that way. He might have a spare key hidden somewhere, but she didn't want to take time to search for it. The first-floor windows were way out of her reach-but the ground-floor windows weren't.
Like many old homes in south Louisiana, this one had been built with a ground floor used for storage; the living areas were above, high enough to thwart the inevitable floodwaters from the bayou. Laurel checked the nearest window, finding it jammed shut and stuck with age and old paint. Quickly she moved around the other side of the stairs and found a door that led beneath the stoop and presumably into the storage space.
She closed her fingers around the knob and tried to turn it, her hand slipping, slick with sweat, and her fingers weak with nerves. She wiped her palm on the leg of her jeans and tried again, holding her breath as the hardware caught, stuck, then, with an extra twist, released, and the door creaked open, revealing a space that was thick with cobwebs and dust. And who knew what else, Laurel thought as she pulled a flashlight from the hip pocket of her jeans. Shaded, undisturbed space close to the bayou. There wouldn't be anything unusual in finding a copperhead or two… or more. The famous scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark slithered up from the depths of her memory and crawled over her skin.
Shuddering, she steeled herself, drew a deep breath, pushed the door open-and a hand clamped over her mouth from behind. An arm banded around her middle, as strong as steel, and hauled her back against a body that was lean, rock-solid, and indisputably male.
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.