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.
Laurel gaped at him. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I followed you," he admitted grudgingly, still cursing himself for it. If he hadn't been standing on the balcony when she had crept down the back steps of Belle Rivière… If he hadn't wondered why and let his imagination loose on the possibilities… If he had a lick of sense and the brains God gave a goat, he would have gone back in and sat down to work.
"Why?" she demanded, glaring up at him with fire in her eyes and a smudge of dirt on the tip of her upturned nose.
"'Cause even money said you were gettin' into trouble."
"So what do you care if I am?" Laurel snapped. "You looked me in face this morning and told me in no uncertain terms you didn't want me in your life. Make up your mind, Jack. You want me or you don't. You're in this or you're out."
He set his jaw and looked past her into the dark of the storage space beneath the house. He wanted her. That wasn't the question, had never been the question. The question was whether he deserved her, whether he dared take the chance to find out. The answers eluded him still, lay inside him beneath a dark cloak he hadn't worked up the courage to look beneath. It was easier not to, simpler to let her walk out of his life.
"Why are you here?" he asked again, bringing his gaze back to her.
"Because I think I know who killed my sister." Fingers tightening around the flashlight, eyes locked hard on his face, she took the plunge. "Stephen Danjermond."
Laurel held her breath, waiting for his reaction, praying he would believe her, certain he would not. Needing him to believe her.
Jack blew out a breath, tunneled his fingers back through his hair, feeling as if she had knocked him upside the head with a lead pipe. "Danjermond!" he murmured, incredulous. "He's the goddamn district attorney!"
Laurel's jaw tightened against the first wave of hurt. "I know what he is. I know exactly what he is."
He swore long and fluently. "Why? Why do you think he's the one?"
"Because he all but told me he was," she said, turning her back to him to shine her light under the stairs and to hide the disappointment. "I don't have time to explain. You either believe me or you don't. Either way, I'm going into this house to look for some kind of proof."
Jack took in the rigid set of her shoulders-so slim, so delicate, too often carrying a burden that would have crushed a lesser person. He thought of the burden that had broken her. She had lost everything-her career, her credibility, her husband-because she had believed justice had to win at all cost. And she would fight this fight, too, alone if she had to, because she believed.
Dieu, he couldn't remember if he had ever believed in anything except looking out for his own hide.
Laurel suffered through the silence, refusing to let her heart break. She didn't have the time for it now. Later, after she had figured out a way to nail Danjermond, then she would let herself deal with this. Now she had a job to do, and if she had to do it alone, so be it.
She choked down the knot in her throat and took a step into the space beneath the house. Jack clamped a hand over her shoulder and held her back.
"Hey, gimme that light, sugar. There might be snakes under here."
They emerged on the first floor of the house, through a door tucked under the main staircase. Laurel toed her sneakers off to avoid tracking in sand and dirt. Jack, in boots, opted to dust them off on the legs of his jeans.
The house was dark, all looming shapes and sinister shadows. The smells of lemon polish and cherry-tinted tobacco hung in the air. A grandfather clock marked time in the hall, ticking the seconds away, chiming the half hour. Nine-thirty.
"What are we looking for?" Jack whispered, keeping a hand on Laurel's shoulder in deference to the protective instincts rising up in him.
"Trophies," she answered, shining the narrow beam of the flashlight on the floor. Her breath hitched in her throat as something tall caught her eye near the front door, then seeped back out as she recognized the lines of a coat tree. "We know the killer kept jewelry as souvenirs because he sent some to me. I'm betting he kept some for himself, as well, as keepsakes."