"Would you happen to know anything about this place?"
Jack's expression froze as he stared down at the elaborate black mask and the neat script title. "Where'd you get this?"
Laurel shrugged, her mouth going dry as his tension was telegraphed to her. "I found it. I think Savannah left it in my car, but she wouldn't admit it was hers. Why? What kind of place is it?"
"It's the kind of place you don' wanna go, sugar," he said grimly, handing it back to her. "Unless you like leather and you're into S amp;M."
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kenner lit his fifth cigarette of the day and sucked in a lungful of tar and nicotine. His eyeballs felt as if they'd been gone over with sandpaper, his vocal cords as if they'd grown bark. He had ice picks stabbing his brain and a stomach full of battery acid disguised as coffee. In comparison, a rabid dog had a pleasant attitude. He was getting nowhere with the Gerrard murder, and it pissed him off like nothing else-except maybe Laurel Chandler.
He stared at her through the haze of smoke that hovered over his cluttered desk, his eyes narrowed to slits, his mouth twisting at the need to snarl.
"So you think Baldwin killed your sister and all them other dead girls?"
Laurel bit back a curse. Her fingers tightened on the arms of the visitor's chair. "That isn't what I said."
"Hell, no," Kenner barked, shoving to his feet. "But that's what you meant."
"It is not-"
"Jesus, I've been just waiting to hear this-"
"Then why don't you listen?"
"-haven't I, Steve?"
Danjermond, lounging against a row of putty-color file cabinets, tightened his jaw at the shortening of his name. Kenner didn't notice. He'd been looking for an excuse to blow off some steam. First someone had the balls to kill a woman in his jurisdiction. Then he'd had to let Tony Gerrard walk. Then every hoped-for lead had piddled into nothing. Now this. He let his temper have free rein, not giving a damn that Laurel Chandler was connected. Ross Leighton himself said the girl was a troublemaker, said she always had been.
"I've just been waiting for you to come charging in here, pointing fingers and naming names."
"I'm only trying to give you information. It's my civic duty-"
"Fuck that, lady." He cut her off, leaning over the desk to tap his cigarette off in the ashtray. "You're trying to make trouble, same as you did up in Georgia. Point your finger, shoot your mouth off, get your name in the paper. You get off on that or something?"
Laurel ground her teeth and cut a look Danjermond's way, wondering why the hell he didn't do something. "I never said Baldwin killed anyone. I just thought you might like to know-"
"That he's some kind of pervert. A preacher." Kenner snorted his derision and shook his head as he pulled hard on his smoke. "What was it up in Georgia? A dentist? A banker? Is there anyone you don't suspect of being a pervert?"
"Well, I doubt you are," Laurel snapped, coming up out of her chair. She planted her hands on Kenner's littered desktop and met him glare for glare. "Why should you resort to perversity when you obviously have a license to fuck over anyone you want!"
While Kenner snarled and foamed at the mouth, her gaze cut again to Danjermond, who had the gall to be amused with her. She could see it in the translucent green depths of his eyes, in the way the corners of his mouth flicked upward ever so slightly. He roused himself from his stance against the file cabinets and came forward, turning his attention on Kenner.
"Now, Duwayne," he said calmly. "Miz Chandler came in here with the best of intentions. If she believes she has information pertinent to the case, you ought to listen."
"Pertinent to the case!" Kenner made a contemptuous sound in his throat and smashed out his cigarette in the overflowing plastic ashtray. "Savannah Chandler says the preacher gets off on tying women up. Savannah Chandler. Jesus, everyone in town knows she's got screws as loose as her morals!"
Fury misting her vision red, Laurel all but dove for his throat. "You son of a bitch!"
Kenner shrugged. "Hey, I'm not saying anything that idn't common knowledge."
"But you're not saying it very tactfully," Danjermond pointed out, frowning.
"Shit, I don't have time to be David Fucking Niven. I've got a murder to solve." He snagged another Camel from the pack and lit it with a match, his gaze hard on Laurel. "Leave the investigating to me, Ms. Chandler."
"Fine," Laurel said through her teeth. "But it would probably be helpful if you would take your head out of your ass so you could see to do it."
Kenner's color deepened to burgundy. He snatched his cigarette from his lip and shook it at her, raining ash down on his desktop and the drift of papers strewn across it. "You want a little advice on where you might find your sister? I wouldn't look any farther than a few dozen bedrooms."
"And that's what you would have said about Annie Gerrard, too, isn't it?" Laurel felt a little surge of triumph as the hit scored. A muscle flexed in Kenner's jaw, and he glanced away. "Yeah, Annie liked to sleep around a little. Look where they found her."
Kenner turned his back on her and stared out through the slats in the crooked venetian blind. Danjermond came around the end of the desk and caught her gently by the arm. "Perhaps it would be better if you and I discussed this in my office, Laurel."
Gracefully, he turned her toward the door and ushered her into the outer office, where Kenner's secretary, Louella Pierce, sat with nail file in hand, absorbing every detail of the melee so she would be able to relate it blow by blow to everyone in the break room. A couple of uniformed officers looked up from the paperwork on their desks with smirks on their faces.
Adrenaline still pumping, Laurel glared at them. "What the hell are you looking at?"
Eyebrows shot up as heads ducked down. Danjermond continued into the hall without pause, herding her along. His grip on her arm seemed deceptively light, but when she tried to discreetly pull away, she couldn't.
"I'll thank you to let me go, Mr. Danjermond," Laurel said softly, angrily, her eyes flashing fiercely as she looked up at him. "I didn't appreciate your little Good Cop-Bad Cop routine back there. I'm not some wide-eyed civilian walking in here with a head full of gossip."
"No," he said calmly, never altering his stride or his expression, but there was something hard in his gaze as he glanced down at her. "You're a former prosecutor with a reputation for making allegations you can't back up. How did you expect him to react?"
There was considerable activity in the hall. Court was in session, but in addition to the usual cadre of attorneys and clerks and stenographers, there were reporters hovering like vultures, waiting for some meat on the latest of the Bayou Strangler's cases. Laurel sensed their presence. Her stomach tightened, and the hair on the back of her neck rose as she felt eyes turn her way-eyes that brightened with feral anticipation at the sight of her walking arm in arm with the parish's golden boy district attorney. Just as in old times, they homed in, scrambling to switch on tape recorders, fumbling for pencils and notebooks. They came forward in a rush, sound bursting out of them like a television that had suddenly been turned on high volume.
"Mr. Danjermond!"
"Ms. Chandler!"
"-is there any connection-?"
"-are you aiding in the investigation-?"
"-have there been any new leads-?"
Danjermond walked on, calm as Moses strolling through the Red Sea. "No comment. We have no comment to make at this time. Ms. Chandler has no comment."
Hating herself for it, Laurel leaned into him and let him take the brunt of the media storm. He guided her into his outer office, and while he dealt the press a final, frustrating "No comment" at the door, she made a beeline past the curious gaze of his secretary and went into the quiet of his inner sanctum.
The details of the office penetrated only peripherally-hunter green walls, heavy brass lamps, dark leather chairs, the smell of furniture polish and cherry tobacco, a place for everything and everything in its place. The shades were drawn, giving the room the feeling of twilight. The mood of the room may have soothed her, but she was too caught up in the churning memories and emotions and self-recriminations. The way she had lost her temper with Kenner was too reminiscent of scenes from Scott County-fights with the sheriff, tirades unleashed on her assistants and colleagues.