"And if you think she can't use it, you better think again, Jimmy Lee," he said. "She'll shoot your balls off and feed 'em to stray dogs."
Jimmy Lee glared at him with a look of pure, unadulterated hate. "I didn't ask you in, Boudreaux."
Jack arched a brow in amusement. "Oh, yeah? Well, you gonna do somethin' 'bout that, Jimmy Lee? Ms. Smith amp; Wesson might have somethin' to say 'bout that."
"Isn't that just like you-hiding behind a woman," Baldwin sneered. He raised an impotent finger in warning. "You take my word for it, Boudreaux. You won't be able to hide much longer."
He had a card up the sleeve of that cheap suit. Jack could tell by the gleam in his eyes. He couldn't imagine what it was, but he couldn't imagine that he'd give a damn, either. He blinked wide in mock fear and splayed a hand across his heart.
"Did you hear that, Miz Chandler? Why I do believe the good reverend just threatened me." With the same casual grace, Jack reached out and gently pushed her hands and the gun down so the barrel pointed at the floor. "Sugar, mebbe you could wait outside for me. I think Reverend Baldwin and I need to clear up this little misunderstanding."
Laurel looked up at him, more curious as to why he had shown up than what he was going to do to Jimmy Lee Baldwin. She probably should have stood her ground or made him leave with her. After all, assault was against the law, and she was sworn to uphold the law. But she glanced over at Baldwin and felt a surge of something primal and angry, and for once turned her back on rules and regulations. She didn't like the things Baldwin had intimated about Savannah-even if she knew deep down they may well have been true.
She slipped the Lady Smith back into her pocketbook and without a word turned and left the bungalow.
Jack settled his hands at the waist of his jeans and waited for the echo of the screen door slamming to fade away before he turned fully toward Jimmy Lee. Jimmy Lee, who believed the best defense was a good offense, snatched up the mostly empty bottle of E amp;J brandy off the three-legged coffee table and brandished it like a big glass club.
"Get the hell out of my house, Boudreaux."
"Not before we have us a little chat." Jack circled Baldwin slowly, moving in on him by imperceptible degrees. He didn't appear threatening. He scuffed his boots along on the gritty linoleum, his head down, as if he had nothing better to do than count the cigarette burns in the floor. "Now, Jimmy Lee, I don' know what you did to make Miz Chandler pull her little peashooter on you, but it had to be somethin' bad-her being such a law-abiding sort and all."
"I didn't do shit to her," Jimmy Lee snapped, turning, turning, to keep Boudreaux in front of him. His fingers flexed on the neck of the brandy bottle. "She's unbalanced. She was in an asylum, you know. She's nuts, just like her sister."
Jack shook his head in grave disappointment, still shuffling along, still turning, still moving in a little at a time. "You're impugning the character of a fine, upstanding woman, Jimmy Lee. Even I have to take exception to that."
Jimmy Lee made another quarter turn, wondering dimly at the way the floor seemed to dip beneath his feet. "I don't give a rat's ass what you take exception to, you coonass piece of shit."
Jack suddenly moved toward him, and Jimmy Lee swung the heavy, unwieldy brandy bottle. He did so with gusto, imagining the mess it would make of the Cajun's head, but he missed badly, throwing himself off balance in the process.
Jack ducked the blow easily. Quick and graceful as a cat, he stepped around Baldwin, caught hold of the preacher's free arm, twisted it up high behind him, and ran him face-first into the rough plaster wall. The bottle fell to the floor and shattered in tinkling shards, the last of the brandy soaking into Baldwin's wingtips.
"I told you once to leave Laurel Chandler alone," Jack growled, his mouth a scant inch from Baldwin's ear. "You shouldn't make me tell you twice, Jimmy Lee. Me, I don' have that kind of patience."
Jimmy Lee tried to suck in a watery breath. His face was mashed against the nubby plaster, and he was sure he'd chipped at least three of his precious caps. While the blood pounded in his head and spittle bubbled between his ruined teeth and down his quivering chin, he damned Jack Boudreaux to hell and plotted a hundred ways to torment him once they were both there.
"I mean it, Jimmy Lee," Jack snarled, jerking his arm up a little higher and wringing a whimper out of him. "If you give her another moment's trouble, I'll rip your dick off and use it for crawfish bait."
He gave one last little push, then stepped back and dusted his palms off on his thighs as Baldwin stood, still facing the wall, doubled over, clutching his arm.
"Hope I don' see you 'round, Jimmy Lee."
Jimmy Lee spat on the floor, a big gob of blood and saliva flecked with fragments of porcelain. "God damn you to hell, Boudreaux!" he yelled around the thumb that was feeling gingerly for the sorry condition of his caps.
Jack waved him off and walked out and away from the bungalow.
"I don't want to know one thing about it," Laurel said as she came toward him from the base of a huge old magnolia tree. "If I don't know anything, I can't be called to testify."
"He'll live," Jack said sardonically. They walked toward the vehicles they had left on the scrubby lawn beside Baldwin's beat-up Ford. Huey sat behind the wheel of Jack's Jeep, ears up like a pair of black triangles, mismatched eyes bright. Jack shot Laurel a sideways glance. "You okay?"
Laurel gave him a look. "What are you doing here, Jack? Two hours ago you weren't even willing to give me a straight answer, let alone ride to my rescue."
He scowled blackly, caught in a trap of his own making. He should have stayed the hell out of it, but as he sat at his desk, smoking the first pack of Marlboros he had allowed himself in two years, trying to conjure up a violent muse, he hadn't been able to get the image out of his head-Laurel charging at Baldwin with the courage of a lion and the stature of a kitten. Baldwin was a con man, but that didn't mean he wasn't capable of worse, and try as he might to convince himself otherwise, Jack couldn't just stand back and let her take a chance like that alone.
"I followed you," he admitted grudgingly. "I don' want to get involved, but I don' want to see you get hurt, either. I've got enough on my conscience."
Too late for that, Laurel thought, biting her lip. He had hurt her in little ways already. He would break her heart if she gave him the chance, and damn her for a fool, some part of her wanted to give him that chance. Knowing everything she knew about him. Even after everything they had said in his kitchen. She couldn't think of his tenderness in the night, of the vulnerability that lay inside that tough, alley-cat facade, and not want to give him that chance.
"Why, Mr. Boudreaux," she said sardonically, gazing up at him with phony, wide-eyed amazement, "you'd better watch yourself. One might deduce from a statement such as that one that you actually feel concern for my well-being. That could be hazardous to your image as a bastard."
"Quit bein' such a smart-ass," he growled, his expression thunderous. "I didn't like the idea of you comin' out here alone. Ol' Jimmy Lee, he might not be as harmless as he seems, you know."
"He might not be harmless at all," Laurel muttered, turning her gaze back toward the shabby little bungalow.
Reverend Baldwin was into kinky sex and bondage, and he had an ugly temper. He also had a near-perfect cover. Who would ever suspect a preacher of murder?
"Murder." The word made her shudder inside. She had come here looking for her sister, and now she was thinking of murder. She wouldn't begin to allow the two subjects near each other in her mind. In any regard.
"Well, whatever your reasons, thank you for coming."
They seemed beyond the formality of thanks, and it hung awkwardly between them. Laurel pushed her glasses up on her nose and shuffled toward her car. Jack shrugged it off and curled his fingers around the door handle of the Jeep.
"Where you goin' lookin' for trouble next, angel?" he asked, calling himself a fool for caring.
"To the sheriff," she said, already steeling herself for the experience. "I think he and I need to have a little chat. Want to come?"
It was a silly offer. She had no business feeling disappointed when he turned her down, but she didn't want to break the fragile thread of communication between them. Foolish. Even as she chastised herself, her fingers snuck into her purse and came out with the red matchbook. She offered it to him, simply to feel his fingertips brush against hers.