Too good for the like of you, T-Jack…
Dieu, what irony, as twisted as a lover's knot, that the most caring thing he could do for her would be not to care about her at all. Everything he touched died. Everything he wanted withered just within his grasp. He had no right to take her as part of his penance for other sins.
He walked down to the bank of the bayou and stood in the deep moon shadows of the live oak, staring out at the glassy water, the pirogue that bobbed at the end of the dock. The night sang around him, a chorus of frog song and insects in between thundershowers. A breeze teased the ends of the moss that hung down from the branches, and they swayed heavily, like ropes on the gallows.
He could see Evie's face hanging there in front of him, pale and pretty even in death, her beautiful dark eyes full of accusation and anger and disappointment. Evie, so trusting, so loving. He had loved her so carelessly, had taken so casually the precious gift she had made of her heart. Shallow, selfish bastard that he was, he had taken all she offered as if it were his due, part of the spoils of his success.
The guilt that weighed on him was heavier than anything in this world. It pressed down on him from above, in on him from all sides. He jerked around in a circle, looking for an escape route and finding none. He tried to back away, but came up against the rough trunk of the live oak, the bark biting into his back through the thin fabric of his T-shirt as the guilt pressed in on him.
Tipping his head back, he closed his eyes tight against the pain, and scalding tears trickled in a stream across his temples and into his hair. There were no adjectives in his writer's mind to describe the anguish, no words for the way it raked through his heart.
"Bon Dieu, Evangeline, sa me fait de le pain. Sa me fait de le pain."
He whispered the words over and over, a hoarse, broken chant for forgiveness, a mantra for relief from the terrible weight of his remorse. But he was granted no pardon. He knew he deserved none, because no matter how sorry he was, Evie would always be dead. And all the dreams she had dreamed would be dead. And all the babies she had planned to love would never be at all.
Because of him.
"Sa me fait de le pain," he mumbled, his face contorting against the pain. He turned into the trunk of the tree and pressed his cheek against the corrugated surface, clinging to the tree as regret wrung tears from him with merciless hands.
Sweet, sweet Evie, his wife.
Sweet, sweet Annie, like family.
Sweet, sweet Laurel…
Bad Jack Boudreaux. Never good enough. Not worthy of love, never meant for a family. Never anything a decent woman should want. A bastard, a cad, a killer.
What a cruel lie to think he could have anything. Better not to care at all than watch something so precious, something so deeply desired, slip through his grasp like smoke, like a magician's trick-there and gone in a heartbeat.
As fragile as life-there and gone in a heartbeat.
Whining softly with concern, Huey padded up to him and nosed the hand that hung limp at his side, sniffing for trouble or a treat. The dog's rough pink tongue slid along his palm hesitantly, offering comfort and sympathy, and Jack pulled away.
"Get outta here," he growled, swinging an arm at the dog.
The hound scuttled back clumsily, ears cocked, his head tilted in a quizzical expression. He woofed softly, falling into a play-bow and wagging his slender wand of a tail.
"Get outta here!" Jack roared.
All the anger and hurt that had gathered into a hard ball inside him burst like a nova and sent a hot, white rage through him. It tore out of him in a wild cry, and he lashed out at the dog, the toe of his boot just grazing Huey's rib cage. The dog let out a yelp of betrayal and fright, and ran ten feet away to stand cowering, looking at Jack with his mismatched eyes as hurt and innocent as a child's.
"Get the hell away from me!" Jack snapped. "I don' have a dog! I don' have a dog," he repeated, the adrenaline spent, his voice a ragged whisper. "I don' have nothin'."
And he turned and walked away from the hound, from L'Amour, and disappeared into the shadows of the night.
Chapter Twenty
Thunder rolls like distant cannon fire. Clouds scud across the night sky like tattered wisps of smoke. The battlefield runs red.
The captive taunts and screams in the night in the swamp. Agony like a wild euphoria fills the air with electricity and the sweet, cloying scent of blood. Desperation and hate. Need and desire. Emotions twist and tear apart, overwhelming both captive and captor. The walls of the shack tremble with the terrible power of dark needs unleashed in the predator and in the prey lashed to the bed.
More than the hunter had bargained for. Madness strips away control, pulls even the soulless over its edge and into the maelstrom.
Outside, the wind rips through the trees, lays flat the slender stalks that grow in the shallows. The creatures of the night bolt and shy, heads turning, eyes wide, nostrils scenting the air as they turn toward the eye of a vortex of violence. The moon punches a hole in the blackness, but the thunder rolls nearer, and lightning fractures the sky like cracks in glass.
The storm comes. Without. Within. Savage and wild. Screaming. Slashing. Rain pelts the bayou and tears at tender growth. Blood spatters walls, prey, and predator. The silk tightens. The end rushes up from the black depths of hell. The moment explodes with power unimagined. With triumph, with defeat, with release from torment-torment from within and without.
The wind dies. The storm wanes. The need ebbs. Control settles in place like dust. Calm returns, and logic with it.
Another dead whore for the unsuspecting to find. Another crime committed to go unsolved. The predator smiles in the blood-drenched night. An adversary might suspect, but none will believe her.
Laurel didn't awaken, she was torn from sleep. In the middle of a dark, disturbing dream, cold, frantic hands reached into her psyche and pulled her out of one realm of existence and into another. She emerged gasping for air, like a swimmer breaking the surface after a long dive in frigid waters. The air around her was warm and moist, a pocket of heat and humidity that had sucked in through the French doors to escape the storm. The room was dark and still, a stillness that held something other than simple quiet. Loss. She felt alone in a way she had never felt before in her life, and her thoughts turned automatically toward Savannah. She had never been alone; she had always had Savannah.
Heart bumping hard against her breastbone, she fought to untangle her legs from the sheet and raced out onto the balcony in nothing but the camisole and slip she had fallen asleep wearing. Down the corridor she ran to the set of doors that opened into her sister's room. She fumbled with the latch and threw them back, stumbling as she pitched herself into the bedroom.
The stillness lingered here, too, hanging like a shroud. An unseen hand closed around Laurel 's throat as she looked around the room. The bed was unmade, empty, the covers left in a drift, pillows strewn everywhere. It looked the same as the last time she had seen it. She tried to swallow the fear that crowded her tonsils and turned slowly, taking in the jumble of jars and pots and bottles on the dressing table, the discarded clothes draped over chairs and abandoned on the floor. There was no way of telling when last Savannah had occupied the room.
A chill raced over her and seeped bone-deep into her. Tears pooled in her eyes. She twisted her hands together, pacing beside the bed. "Don't be stupid, Laurel," she muttered, her voice cutting and harsh. " Savannah has slept elsewhere more times than you can count. Just because she isn't here tonight-that doesn't mean anything. She's with a lover, that's all."
To distract herself, she tried to think of which one it might be. Ronnie Peltier with his jackhammer penis. Taureau Hebert-the man Savannah had fought over with Annie. Jimmy Lee Baldwin-who preached morals and played bondage games. Conroy Cooper-whose invalid wife had been terrorized only the night before.