Even at high noon this wasn't a place she would have chosen to be. It wasn't noon. The sun had begun its fireball descent. It would be night soon and she stood alone at the end of an equipment lane between a cane field and a black bayou, listening to the melodious call of a red-winged blackbird as the setting sun spilled orange light over everything.
She swung around, her breath catching hard in her throat at a rustling in the tall reeds along the bank. A blue heron rose, eerily silent, it's long, spindly legs stretching out behind it as it sailed away. Serena forced herself to exhale slowly. It wasn't an alligator. It wasn't a snake.
It wasn't her informant.
Serena stroked her fingers along the canister of Mace inside her purse. Her ex-husband had given it to her as a gift when she'd begun her pro bono work at the mental health clinic. Romantic devil. The neighborhood where the clinic was located was a bad one, and she occasionally worked late. Paul had been concerned for her safety and Serena had to admit there had been times when she'd been concerned herself, but she had yet to use his gift. She touched it now only to reassure herself. She didn't really believe she would need protection.
She had already considered the possibility of a trap and dismissed it. Burke wouldn't be foolish enough to try something so close on the heels of the fire. It would point directly to him. Still, it didn't hurt to be prepared.
She heaved a long sigh and scanned the ground around her, looking for snakes. There were long black indigo snakes out here that hunted mice among the cane stalks. They weren't poisonous, but she had no desire to encounter one just the same. There were cottonmouths along the bayou that came out at night and copperheads that commanded the floor of the woods. The idea of them made her skin crawl and fear knot at the back of her throat. They wouldn't come looking for her, Serena reminded herself, doing her best to swallow the impending panic attack.
Where was her damned informant?
The sound of an outboard motor idling down drew her attention to the north. She tried to peer through the tangled ribbons of willow branches to make out the boat and its occupant, but it was impossible to see well. Already the light was fading along the bayou, and all she could make out was bits of color and shape.
She had for some reason assumed the man would be coming the same way she had, by foot down the lane. In the back of her mind she had decided he was an employee of Chanson du Terre. She had imagined he had chosen this spot for the meeting because it was near the plantation buildings and yet secluded enough so they wouldn't be seen. She had given no thought to the bayou or a boat, and she cursed her lack of foresight as a sudden chill swept over her from head to foot.
«Well, lookee here, Pou,» Gene Willis said, a leering smile twisting the hard line of his mouth as he parted the weeds and willow branches and stepped into the clearing. Pou Perret scuttled along at his heels like a pet weasel, his droopy eyes darting furtively all around, his mustache twitching as if he were scenting the air for danger. «If it ain't Lucky Doucet's lady. Fancy meetin' you here, Miz Sheridan.»
Serena eyed the pair warily, her hand closing around the Mace. She recognized them from Mouton's. She doubted she would ever get the scene out of her head: Lucky with a knife in his hand, this big red-haired man lunging for him, the little scruffy one swinging a broken bottle, a wild gleam in his eye. They might have been the kind of men one would hire to start a fire or commit any number of other criminal acts, but they didn't seem like the sort to come forward with information-unless it was for a price.
«How much do you want for the information?» she asked, trying to sound calm and businesslike despite the way she was beginning to tremble from the inside out.
«You hear that, Pou?» Willis went on smiling, sauntering closer. He moved with all the grace of a bear and looked nearly as strong. Serena's gaze focused on his hands. They were huge and ugly, raw-looking with fingers like sausages. «The lady wants to pay us. I can't remember the last time a lady wanted to give me anything, can you?»
Pou apparently took it as a rhetorical remark. He said nothing, but Serena could feel his eyes on her, hot and feral like an animal's. He moved slowly toward her and to her right, his hands behind his back.
«Isn't that what you came here for?» she said, trying to buy time. She forced herself to stand her ground and gripped her can of Mace with a sweaty hand. «Money?»
Willis grinned, an expression that had undoubtedly looked evil even when he'd been in the cradle. One sinisterly arched red brow climbed his forehead while the other hung low over a narrow eye. «No, Miz Serena. We're already gettin' paid. And hell,» he added with a nasty laugh, «this is a job I'd do for free.»
They were moving closer, slowly, menacingly. Serena took a half step back. Fear climbed high in her throat. «I'll pay you double.» She wasn't sure how they were supposed to be earning their money, but she was fairly certain it would be worth paying them double not to do their jobs.
Pou shot a glance up at Willis, looking for a reaction. Willis pretended to consider her offer, humming and making an exaggerated face. After a minute he shook his head and smiled at her again.
«Naw, I don't think so,» he said, rubbing one of his ugly hands across his massive jaw. «You see, the perks of this job are so much better than money. Ain't that right, Pou?»
Perret flinched a little at the sound of his name, tearing his gaze off Serena once again to look up at his partner. «Jesus, Willis, let's just do it,» he whined, suddenly nervous again. «Me, I don' wanna be hanging 'round here if that son of a bitch shows up. He'll kill us!»
«If you're looking for Lucky, he could be here any minute,» Serena said. It wasn't much of a threat, but she was beginning to feel a little desperate.
Willis just smiled and inched a little closer. «Nice try, sweetheart, but I know exactly where Doucet is.
He's at Mouton s with a whiskey bottle and a peroxide blonde who could suck the brass off a doorknob. I don't think he'll be joining us any time soon. Too bad for him. He's gonna miss one hell of a party.»
Serena felt a painful lurch in her middle at the thought of Lucky with another woman. Her concentration broke for just an instant, and in that instant Gene Willis reached out and grabbed her, his big ugly hand manacling her left wrist.
She reacted instantly, pulling the Mace from her purse and hitting the button as she swung it wildly toward Willis's face. He knocked her hand aside with a swift, hard blow that numbed her arm to the elbow and sent the can and her purse sailing, but he was a split second late. The spray caught him in the left eye and he let her go and reeled backward, howling like a wounded beast.
Serena turned and ran. Her heart was in her throat. Her blood roared in her ears. Her body felt as if it belonged to someone else, someone who didn't realize the kind of danger she was in. Her legs wouldn't move fast enough. Her lungs wouldn't draw enough breath for her to scream. She ran down the lane, stumbling because the loafers she wore weren't designed for flight.
Behind her she could hear Willis swearing and shouting at his partner, «Get her, damn you!» Then came the pounding of feet.
She couldn't hope to outrun him. The lane stretched before her, looking longer and longer with not a building in sight. Her only options were to jump in the bayou and swim for it or try to lose herself in the cane. The cane led back to people. She thought of snakes and hesitated. There was no other choice. As Perret's footfalls rushed up on her, she veered suddenly to the left, diving for the cover of the sugarcane.
Perret tackled her from behind, his shoulder hitting her in the middle of the back, driving her forward and knocking her off her feet. She hit the ground with a thud that jarred every part of her. Her captor landed on top of her, the force of his weight blurring her vision and knocking the air from her lungs. Before she could even think of moving he had his knee planted between her shoulder blades, pinning her to the hot, moist earth.