"That's right, my friends in Christ," he said, walking to the other end of the rented flatbed truck that was serving as his stage for the afternoon. "Only through faith. Not through liquor or drugs or sins of the flesh!"
He loved the way he could build a sentence to a thundering crescendo. So did his faithful. There were women in the crowd who looked positively orgasmic over the magic of his voice.
"That's why, my beloved brothers and sisters," he said softly.
He raised his crumpled handkerchief to his face and blotted away the sweat that was running down his forehead. The day had turned into a damn steambath. His white shirt was soaked through. His cheap linen-look jacket hung on him like damp wallpaper. He wanted desperately to take a cool shower and lie naked on his bed with a lovely young thing reviving his energies with her sweet hot mouth. But for the moment he was stuck on the back of this flatbed truck with the sun beating down on him, boiling the sweat on his skin. The first thing he was going to do when he was rich and famous was move his ministry the hell away from Louisiana.
"That's why we have to do this battle. That's why we have to vanquish our wicked foe who would lead us all into temptation and deliver us into the hands of evil. That's why we must smite down the dens of iniquity!"
He swung his arm in the direction of Frenchie's, which was across the parking lot behind him, and his small gathering of devout cheered like the mob at Dr. Frankenstein's door. Such eager little sheep. Jimmy Lee grinned inwardly.
Laurel climbed out of the Jeep, took several swift, angry steps toward the gathered crowd, then stopped in her tracks, the soles of her sneakers crunching on the fine white shell. Her every muscle tensed as her conscience warred with the part of herself that was preaching self-protection. This wasn't her fight. She wasn't up to handling a fight. But it made her so damn mad…
"You fixin' to whup him onstage this time, 'tite chatte?" Jack asked, curling a hand around her fist and lifting it experimentally.
She shot him a look of pure pique and jerked away. "I'm going to have the Delahoussayes call the sheriff. If no one else is going to help them, that's the least I can do."
Jack shrugged. "Go ahead, darlin'. For all the good it'll do."
"It most certainly will do good."
He rolled his eyes and trailed after her as she marched onward. "You haven't met Sheriff Kenner, have you, sugar?"
Laurel considered the question rhetorical. She couldn't see that it would make any difference. Baldwin and his congregation were trespassing. Trespassing was against the law. The sheriff's job was to uphold the law. It was as simple as that.
They had to pass Baldwin 's makeshift stage on the way to the bar. Laurel held her head high and fixed the self-styled preacher with a baleful glare.
Jimmy Lee had caught sight of her the second she had wheeled into the lot with Jack Boudreaux. Laurel Chandler. God was smiling down on him today, indeed.
He waited until she was almost even with the truck before calling out to her. "Miss Chandler! Miss Laurel Chandler, please don't pass us by!"
She shouldn't have slowed down. She should have kept right on marching for the bar. She didn't want to go any deeper into this than she was already. But her feet hesitated automatically at the sound of her name, and something pulled her toward Jimmy Lee Baldwin. Not his charisma, as he would probably have preferred to believe. Not his air of authority. But something that had been with her since childhood. The need to stand up to a bully. The need to try to make people see a charlatan for what he was. The need to fight for justice.
She turned and marched right up to the front of his stage and glared up at him.
"Join us, sister," Jimmy Lee said, holding his hand out toward her. "I don't know what hold this vile place has over you, but I know, I know you are a good person at heart."
"Which is more than I can say for someone bent on harassing law-abiding citizens," Laurel snapped.
"The law." Jimmy Lee bobbed his head, a grave expression pulling down his handsome features. "The law protects the innocent. And the guilty would hide like wolves in sheep's clothing, hide behind the law. Isn't that true, Miss Chandler?"
Laurel went still. His eyes met hers, and a chill of foreboding swept over her skin despite the heat of the day. He knew. He knew, and the bastard was going to use it to his own end. Without looking, she could feel the curious eyes of his fifty or so followers falling on her. He knew. They would know. That she had failed. That justice had slipped from her grasp like a bar of wet soap.
"My friends…" Baldwin 's voice came to her as if from a great distance down a long tin tunnel. "Miss Chandler has herself been a soldier in the fight against the most heinous of crimes, crimes against innocent children. Crimes perpetrated by depraved souls who would masquerade among us, showing us righteous faces by day and by night subjecting our children to unspeakable acts of sex! Miss Chandler knows of our fight, don't you Miss Chandler?"
Laurel barely heard him. She could feel the weight of their gazes press in on her, the weight of their judgment. She had failed. "… unspeakable acts of sex…" She shivered as she felt herself drawing inward, pulling in to protect herself. "… unspeakable acts of sex…" "Help us, Laurel! Help us…"
Jack watched her go pale, and he damned Jimmy Lee to eternal hell. His own personal philosophy of life was live and let live. If Jimmy Lee wanted to make a buck off God, that was his business. If people were stupid enough to follow him, that wasn't Jack's problem. He would have gone right on ignoring Baldwin and his band of lunatics. He wasn't out to fight anyone's fight. But the bastard had gone too far. He had somehow, some way managed to hurt Laurel.
Before he could even fathom what lay beneath his response, Jack hopped onto the hood of Baldwin 's borrowed truck and proceeded to climb over the cab. He jumped down onto the flatbed, landing right smack behind Jimmy Lee, who bolted like a startled horse, but didn't move quickly enough to get away.
Jack caught hold of Baldwin 's arm and deftly twisted it behind the preacher's back in a hold he had learned the hard way-from his old man. He grinned at the man like a long lost brother and spoke through his teeth at a pitch only Jimmy Lee could hear. "You got two choices here, Jimmy Lee. Either you can suddenly succumb to the heat of the day, or I'll break all the fine, small bones in your wrist."
Baldwin stared into those cold dark eyes, and a chill ran down him from head to toe. He'd heard rumors about Jack Boudreaux… that he was wild, unpredictable, affable one minute and mean as sin the next. Boudreaux was, by all accounts of the people who read his books, seriously unbalanced. The hold tightened on his wrist, and Jimmy Lee thought he could feel those small bones straining under the pressure.
"That's right, Jimmy Lee"-the smile chilled another degree-"I'd sooner break your arm."
Restless murmurs began rumbling through the crowd like distant thunder. The preacher ground his teeth. He was losing his momentum, losing his hold on them. Damn Jack Boudreaux. Jimmy Lee had had them on the brink of a frenzy, champing at the bit to launch him on the road to televangelist greatness. He cast a glance at his followers and back at the man beside him.
"Sin," he said, and the pressure tightened. "I-I can feel the heat of it!" He rolled his eyes and swayed dramatically on his feet. "Oh, Lord have mercy! The heat of it! The fires from hell!"