He dragged her back to the bed, ignoring her resistance. With the dagger, he sliced the ties that bound her hands and quickly shoved her down on the bed, planting a knee in the middle of her chest to pin her down with his weight. Using the ties that had tethered other victims to this deathbed, he lashed her to the headboard.
"Too bad it's raining so," he said conversationally as he sat on the bed beside her, admiring the sight of her glaring up at him. Taking up the dagger, he dipped it in her navel and drew it lightly up the quivering flesh of her belly, between her breasts. "I would have brought Jack in and tried to rouse him for the performance. He should witness what his imagination only hints at, see for himself the power of it, the seduction. He has the darkness within him. Before he dies, he should witness the glory of it unleashed."
The blade hooked under the neck band of her T-shirt and, with a practiced move, he sliced it open. With the tip of the dagger he peeled back the ruined garment on either side, baring her to his gaze.
"Dainty," he whispered, rubbing the flat of the knife against her uninjured breast. "Exquisitely feminine."
"What happened to make you hate women so?" she asked, choking with revulsion as he dipped a thumb in the blood from the wound he had inflicted and painted it across first one nipple then the other.
Danjermond raised a brow. "I don't hate women," he said, sounding amused. "This is my hobby. It's nothing personal."
"I consider being murdered highly personal."
He rose with a sigh and rounded the foot of the bed to sit on the straight chair. He dropped the dagger on the floor at his feet and casually began to unbutton his shirt. "Well, yes, I suppose you would, all things considered. But then, that's been a longtime problem of yours, hasn't it, Laurel? You tend to personalize everything. That's what got you into such trouble in Georgia. You were too personally involved. You couldn't see the forest for the trees. We both know how important perspective is in building a case. A prosecuting attorney must be cold, thorough, detached. Emotionalism only leaves the door open for surprises from the opposition. As you've discovered for yourself, Laurel, I am a very thorough man. I don't tolerate surprises."
Without warning, the cabin door exploded inward, the rotted frame splintering, rain and wind sweeping in, and Jack with it. His momentum carried him forward, and he bowled into a stunned Danjermond before the district attorney could do more than turn and gape at him. The wooden chair disintegrated into kindling beneath their combined weight and the two men crashed to the floor.
Laurel screamed Jack's name and struggled to sit up, trying to see. She could hear the struggle-the scuff of boots on the floor, the grunts and cruses. She knew in her heart what the outcome would be. Jack was fighting literally with both hands tied behind his back, and he had to be barely conscious. Danjermond would kill him, just as surely as he would kill her-unless she could somehow manage to get herself free.
She wriggled up toward the headboard, inches at a time, trying not to strain against the ties that held her by her wrists, trying to move into a position that would give her some slack. Gritting her teeth, she concentrated on shutting out the sounds of the fight and tried to focus her mind on her bonds. Silk. Smooth, strong, slick, slippery. Her hands were small, fine-boned, her wrists delicate. If she concentrated, moved just right, didn't tighten them by struggling…
Jack struggled to keep Danjermond pinned beneath him, but his strength ebbed and flowed in erratic bursts, and his faulty sense of balance made it difficult to determine which way was up. He fought as best he could with his knees and his feet, jabbing, kicking when he could, ignoring the pain that screamed through his head and bit into his side.
Danjermond writhed beneath him, twisting, heaving upward. He reached for the dagger that had skittered across the floor, and Jack threw his weight hard against him, sending them both crashing into a table along the wall, and sending the table crashing to the floor.
Candles rolled like tenpins, their flames licking at anything in their path, catching hungrily at the old tar paper that lined the walls of the shack.
The men rolled away from the fire, still struggling for supremacy. Jack managed to catch his adversary in the belly with his knee, but Danjermond struck back viciously, slamming his fist into the side of Jack's head. The pain sent Jack rolling, plummeting toward unconsciousness like a diver shooting toward the bottom of a black, black ocean.
He fought against it, held his breath, and fought to claw his way back up through the dark, up through the fireflies that swarmed in his brain. His vision cleared enough for him to make out flames licking greedily up the wall and three wavering versions of Danjermond silhouetted in front of the glow. Three devils from hell. Three Danjermonds raising an arm, three daggers gleaming, slashing toward him.
He dove for the man in the center, his shoulder hitting solid mass at the same instant the dagger plunged into his back. He felt a rib break, then a strange vacuum sensation in his chest. What little strength he had left sucked out of him, and he fell heavily to the floor, mouthing Laurel's name.
"Jack! Jack!" Laurel shouted his name to be heard above the roar of the fire that was devouring the wall of the shack. She shouted a third time, frantic to hear him answer, knowing that he wouldn't.
She had seen Danjermond rise, had seen the dagger slash down. Jack was dead. She was alone. It wouldn't matter that she had managed to work one hand free. She wouldn't have time to untie the other. Danjermond was on his feet already. Coming toward her. The dagger dripping blood. Jack's blood. Danjermond smiled like Lucifer himself against the backdrop of flame.
Don't look at him, work the knot, work the knot. Crying, coughing against the black smoke that was beginning to press down from the ceiling, she scrambled across the bed, fumbling to free her left hand.
Jack raised his head a fraction of an inch. All he could see were Danjermond's feet. Moving toward Laurel. From some deep inner well he drew the last drops of will and courage he had and swung his legs. He hit Danjermond in the backs of the knees, and the district attorney's legs buckled beneath him, sending him sprawling headlong into the flames.
The screams were terrible. Inhuman. Engulfed in flame, he managed to stand and tried frantically to run, stumbling and falling across the bed. Laurel screamed and flung herself off the other side as the silk spread ignited in a flash.
She staggered back from the ghoulish scene, choking on the smoke, eyes stinging so badly, she could barely hold them open. There was nothing to be done for Danjermond. And in that terrible, fire-bright moment, she didn't know whether she would have tried. All she knew with any certainty was that the cabin was going up like a tinderbox, and if they didn't get out quickly, she and Jack would share Danjermond's fate.
Crouching low to escape the worst of the smoke, she ran around the foot of the bed and dropped to her knees beside Jack's sprawled form.
"Jack!" she screamed, the sound almost consumed by the roar of the fire. "Damn you Jack, don't die on me now!"
She pulled at him, gritted her teeth, and threw all her strength into dragging him toward the door, shouting every inch of the way. Her curses and pleas penetrated the fog of Jack's consciousness. Her determination made him move his legs when he wasn't sure he could remember how. He latched onto the sound of her voice and the feel of her hand and the incredible power of her will, and used it all to propel himself forward. At the door, he caught hold of the splintered frame and got his feet under himself.
"Hurry!" Laurel shouted, wrapping an arm around his waist and trying to take his weight against her as they stumbled down the steps and started toward the bayou.
The rain was still falling, but it was no match for the old dried wood of the shack. The cabin lit up the night sky like a torch. The fire devoured it as if hell had opened up to consume all evidence of the atrocities that had been practiced there, devouring the perpetrator, as well, condemning him to a justice that was absolute.