He used a dirty bandanna for a gag, tying it roughly behind her head, incorporating strands of hair into the knot so that no matter how still Serena tried to be, it pulled. Tears of fear and pain flooded her eyes as Perret bound her hands tightly behind her back. They rose up in her throat and she choked and gagged, discovering very quickly that she wouldn't be allowed the luxury of crying. The bandanna with its foul, sour taste hindered not only speech but breathing and swallowing.
Perret rose and pulled her up with him, using the gag like a bridle on a horse. He curled his fingers into the back of it, pulling it unbearably tight, twisting her hair along with it, and jerked her to her feet and steered her back toward Willis.
The big man had regained his feet, but stood half doubled over, one hand pressed to his injured eye. The glare in his good eye was murderous, and Serena suddenly understood why some self-defense instructors preached cooperation rather than aggression. Whatever Willis had had in store for her was nothing compared to what was going through his mind now.
She tried to stop before she got too close to him, but Perret shoved her forward and she had no way of catching herself. Willis knocked her to her knees with a single backhanded blow across the face that brought more tears and the taste of blood.
«You bitch,» he growled, clutching at his eye. «You're gonna pay for this. You're gonna pay till you wished you'd never been born a woman.»
Serena managed to turn and raise herself up as he swung his foot at her. The kick caught her shoulder instead of the side of her head. Pain exploded through her at the blow and then again as she went facefirst to the ground, unable to break the fall.
«Get her in the boat,» Willis ordered, and staggered away, still rubbing at his eye.
Perret once again took hold of her makeshift bridle and hauled her to her feet. They loaded her with a minimum of ceremony into a battered aluminum-hulled boat with a massive outboard motor hanging off the back. It was the kind of thing poachers might use, Serena suspected, with enough horsepower to outrun the game warden-or the odd Lone Ranger. The boat was loaded with traps and tarps, empty whiskey bottles and crushed beer cans. There were a number of small holes in the side above the water line that may well have been caused by bullets. It reeked of swamp water and fish. Perret forced her to sit on the bottom on a wadded-up piece of damp black canvas with her back against the side of the boat, the unadorned edge biting into her spine. Then Pou started the motor and piloted them away from the bank while Willis attempted to flush the Mace from his eye with beer.
The fear that rose inside Serena threatened to swallow her whole. She could feel it growing stronger, clawing at her, tearing at her mind as the boat carried her away from Sheridan land. She wanted to scream, but the screams caught in the back of her throat and choked her. She wanted to run, but there was nowhere to run to; there was nothing around her but black water and swamp.
God, they were taking her into the swamp! The terror she normally felt at the prospect of going out there doubled, then tripled. She better than anyone knew how easy it was for a person to become lost. By the time anyone realized she was missing, it would be virtually impossible to find her. Willis and Perret could do anything they wanted. There would be no witnesses. There would be no one to hear her screams. Suddenly her future looked worse than anything her nightmares had ever conjured.
She wondered wildly what their orders were. What exactly had Burke paid them to do? Scare her into selling? Get her out of the way while he made a deal for the land? Use her as a hostage with Chanson du Terre as her ransom price? It seemed unlikely. Too dangerous to Burke and to Tristar. That left only one possibility. Burke would get her out of the way- permanently.
That deduction brought another wave of fear. Tears gathered in her eyes, but she fought them back. Control. That was her only hope-to keep her head, to keep her cool, to look for the opportunity to escape.
With effort she forced the fear back, compressed it and shoved it into a mental compartment and shut the door. Fear would get her nothing. It was a waste of time and energy. It would do her no good to cry and shake. It would do not good to wish for a rescuer. Lucky wasn't going to swoop down from a tree and save her. He was at Mouton's drowning his sorrows and she was on her own. She could save herself or she could be tortured and killed. It was as simple as that.
Still trembling, she forced herself to look around and take in landmarks. If she concentrated hard enough, she might be able to memorize the route they were taking and retrace it once she managed to get away. She thought it was the same way Lucky had gone to get her to Gifford's, but she wasn't sure. It was growing darker by the second, making it very difficult to see, and the bayou branched off too many times for her to be certain of the turns.
The swamp closed in around them, dark and silent beyond the puttering of the motor. Perret slowed the boat to a crawl as he negotiated the way among a stand of cypress. Willis sprawled in one of the boat's two bucket seats, facing Serena. He had stopped using the beer from his cooler to rinse his eye and had started drinking it instead.
Serena could feel his gaze on her, lingering on her breasts. She tried to shrug it off, but the feeling clung as tenaciously as the mosquitoes that were feasting on the exposed skin of her throat and face. She had worn a long-sleeved blouse and slacks, knowing better than to go out into the fields at dusk uncovered, but she had forgotten Lucky's warning about her perfume. She had dabbed some on after her shower, needing to feel feminine after a day of grubbing around in the ashes of the machine shed, and hadn't thought to wash it off before leaving the house.
Willis slid down from his perch to kneel on the tarp in front of her. Serena eyed him warily. His left eye was nearly swollen shut, giving him an even more monstrous appearance than before. Beer had spilled unheeded over his shirt, adding to the sour stench of his sweat. He raised a hand and brushed his rough-skinned knuckles along her jaw, smiling like a snake in the fading light.
«They don't call that Cajun bastard Lucky for nothing, do they?» he said. «You're some fancy piece.»
Serena fought the urge to shrink away from his touch. An animal like Willis would feed on fear. She bit down on the gag and schooled her features into what she hoped was a blank mask.
«What would a lady like you see in that coonass trash anyway?» he asked, his eyes roaming over her as if the answer might be written somewhere on her body. His leering grin spread across his thin, hard lips and his good eye lit up. «I'll bet he's hung like a stallion. Do proper ladies like you go for that? A man with the right kind of tool for the job? Who would'a guessed?»
He chuckled, apparently as amused by her lack of response as he would have been by a protest.
«You know,» he went on, still stroking her jaw, «when I was up in Angola I had a picture of a pretty blonde on the wall of my cell. I used to dream about doing her every night. She looked a lot like you… only she was naked.»
He lowered his hand from her chin to the first button on her white silk blouse and popped it open with a flick of thumb and forefinger. Bile rose in Serena's throat, but she swallowed it as another pearl button gave way and another. She bit down harder on the gag and stared straight ahead as Willis opened her blouse and feasted his eyes on her breasts.
«Nice,» he whispered, leaning closer. He traced the lacy edge of her bra once, then again, this time dipping his finger inside the fabric to caress the slope of her breast. «I can hardly wait to see the rest.»