A Christmas Kiss (20 page)

And Joey had been certain Kit was dead.

The long marsh grass snatched at her feet, tangling around her ankles. When she started to slow, Kit gripped her arm and thrust her forward, pushing her through grass and water that was now knee-deep.

"You want to save Tio, you better hustle. The longer it takes you to get through this, the more chances they have of blowing him away."

That inspired Cori to lift her feet higher and trudge deeper into the swamp. She focused on one step at a time, and on the curious fact that she felt nothing but contempt and hatred for the man behind her.

Had she ever loved him? It didn't seem possible now. She couldn't even remember why she had let his disappearance cause a ripple in her life. She should have been glad to see him gone. She should have turned to her new life and begun to live. The fact that she was going to die seemed inescapable, yet somehow distant. What bothered her was that she was going to die a fool.

"Go left," Kit said. He nudged her that way for good measure.

"Don't touch me," she said. She knew it sounded ridiculous. He wasn't going to touch her, he was going to shoot her. She stopped abruptly. "Why don't you shoot me here? Why go through all of this slogging through the swamp? Shoot me now and you could move a lot faster without me."

Kit drew a breath. "Believe it or not, I'm not wild about killing you."

"So why prolong my torment?" She held up her hands. "Just get it over with." There had to be a reason Kit hadn't shot her. He had become a man who did whatever he had to do to survive. Killing her would be one in a long list of atrocities. Why was he hesitating? Had he actually cared, a little, for her?

Could she use this to her advantage?

"They want to be certain you're dead. If I kill you, I'll have to drag the body out. It's easier if you walk on your own."

Cori's plans crumbled into dust. There was no sentiment in Kit's unwillingess to kill her, only practicality. A body that could push itself along was far preferable to having dead weight to carry. She turned to the left and started forward. If he touched her one more time, gun be damned, she'd claw his eyes out with her fingers.

Cori's right foot shot through the grass and water, plunging her waist-deep in mud. She was so startled by the way the ground gave beneath her that she didn't react when Kit tugged her out.

"Keep moving. This whole area is riddled with those holes."

She slogged on, trying to see through the water to the firmness of the ground beneath, but it was impossible. She hit another hole and cursed.

Kit pulled her out. "I could have used you coming in to find the holes," he said.

Cori thought she had despised him before, but his comment made her boil. She turned to speak when a movement to her right froze her. The marsh grass had begun to shimmy, and not in a way that indicated wind. Something big had slid into the water, and she could see it coming her way.

"Alligator." She spoke because in her heart she knew it was true. Now Laurette's statement about no one making it in through the swamp took on new meaning. She wasn't talking about the water. She had known there were alligators here.

"Where?" Kit spun around, and he too saw the rippling grass begin to part as the creature came toward them. "Run!" He tried to push Cori forward, but she was frozen. She couldn't take her eyes off the grass that marked the alligator's rapid approach. Every gruesome Tarzan film and natural science show that she'd ever watched held her prisoner in the wet grass.

Kit did not wait for her. He darted past her, his longer legs giving him an advantage in the thick grass and mud. Not five feet from her, he went down in a hole, pulled himself up and kept going. Cori stood perfectly still.

Movement in the tall grass ceased completely. Then the alligator shifted directions. It had forsaken her and moved after the thrashing, floundering Kit.

Turning some thirty yards from her, the reptile headed for open water, where Kit would be an easy target. Cori watched, unable to move and barely able to breathe. As the alligator passed, she caught a glimpse of it through the grass. It was at least ten feet long, deadly. When it was gone she started back to the camp, making as little noise as possible. There were bound to be others.

When Kit's scream pulsed in the still air, she put her hands over her ears and tried to block it out. As she found her way back to the shallower water, she began to run. The gunshots at the dock had ceased, and she knew only that she had to get her shotgun and see what had happened to Joey and Laurette.

She found the gun exactly where she had left it. Her fingers lifted it just as the sun sank below the rim of the swamp, giving a last, beautiful glimpse of the open swamp and the circling gun smoke that was left hanging in the still air.

Darkness was the cover she needed. When she could dart from tree to tree with some degree of safety, she made her way to the dock.

"Laurette?" Cori whispered her name, praying there would be an answer.

"Laurette?"

"Over here. I'm hit."

Cori followed her voice "How bad is it?"

"In the shoulder. I've managed to stop the bleeding, but I can't move or it starts up again."

"Joey?" Cori tried to sound strong.

"I don't know." There was desperation in her voice.

"Aaron?"

"I don't know what happened to him, either. They came out of the sun, and all we could do was fire blindly."

"Where are they?"

"They pulled back, but I don't know where. They could be out there, waiting again." Laurette's voice sounded hopeless. "What do these men want? Why are they so determined to kill all of us?"

Cori hesitated "I testified in a mobster's trial two years ago. But what I don't understand is, why kill me now? Why didn't they do it then when I was in New Orleans, unprotected?"

Laurette's answer was a groan as she tried to shift positions.

Cori inched forward until she found Laurette's leg. Joey's sister had managed to drag herself into a small depression where she was safe. As Cori felt in the darkness, she found the ground beneath Laurette's shoulder sticky with blood. A compress bandage was what she needed.

"I'm going to the cabin for some towels. Don't move, Laurette. You're still bleeding."

"Okay." Fear edged Laurette's voice.

"I'll be back. Listen for Joey. I'm sure he's okay." Cori didn't believe it, but Laurette needed something to hang on to. If she gave up, if her will deserted her, she might die, too.

Cori couldn't allow herself to think of Joey. She had to focus on saving Laurette. Bandages. That's what she had to think about. And after that, she would tackle the next physical task. She could think of anything except Joey.

Cori crept back to the cabin, found the towels and tore a sheet into strips. She was back at Laurette's side in less than fifteen minutes.

In the darkness, it was hard to construct a compression wrap around a shoulder, but she made the best of it until she could get Laurette into the cabin. She was almost finished when the gentle slap of the water against the dock intensified.

Automatically, Cori's fingers reached for the shotgun. She brought it up, swinging blindly in the night.

At this point, anything that moved was a likely target.

The low, mournful whistle came to her. For a moment, she didn't believe her ears. Then she gasped.

"It's Joey. Laurette, it's Joey!" She lowered the gun and whistled softly back, imitating the sound of a marsh bird as best she could.

She heard the water slush as he made the dock, and then there were the slight sounds of him easing from the water. Cori whistled again, directing him toward them.

He slipped beside her, dripping and freezing, but his voice was calm. "Are you okay?" In the darkness his fingers found her face, touching, assessing, even before she could voice her answer.

"I'm fine. It's your sister." Cori found his hand and placed it on Laurette's shoulder. "She's shot.

She's lost a lot of blood."

"I'm okay, Joey," Laurette assured him, but her voice had grown weaker.

Without a second's hesitation, Joey scooped his sister into his arms. "Get both guns," he urged Cori.

"And hurry."

Carrying the shotgun and the rifle, Cori followed behind Joey as he made his way silently up to the cabin.

"IT"S an infection." Joey pressed the cool cloth on Laurette's forehead. It was almost midnight, and Laurette's fever had come on her with terrible speed. There were no antibiotics in the cabin, nothing to deep clean the wound, and Joey had determined that the bullet was still lodged in the muscle. "We have to get her back to town."

How? Cori didn't bother to ask the question. They weren't certain Laurette's boat was still tied to the tree where Joey had hidden it, and they had no idea where the killers might be hiding in the swamps.

With Aaron as their hostage-guide, they could have set a trap anywhere.

Joey sat back in his chair. "We haven't talked about Kit."

Deep within her mind, Cori heard the horror of his scream. She saw again the grass shifting as the alligator made its way toward him. "There's nothing to say. He came to kill me, and an alligator got him."

She felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. In time, her numbed feelings would awaken, but right now she wanted them to stay dead. She didn't want to think about Kit, or talk about him. He had intended to kill her, and he had died. If he had lived, she would have died. It was a simple equation of survival. Later, much later, if she lived that long, she might want to explore the betrayal, the loss, the rationalization of Kit's actions, and her own. Not now, though. Now she wanted only to cool Laurette's fever and figure out a way back to Henderson and help.

"There's nothing to say," she repeated.

"You were right, he was alive." Joey shifted so that he could look at her fully. They had risked the lantern. They needed the light to care for Laurette. There was also a fire in the fireplace for warmth.

Laurette's fever shifted periodically to chill.

"You
were right," she said. "Those chocolate kisses were a lure. Bait in a neat trap to draw me back to New Orleans where they intended to kill me on the street. Just another unfortunate homicide."

"But why?" Joey pondered the question. "If Kit found you in Houston, why not kill you there if that was the intent? It could have been done successfully, and perhaps without drawing suspicion."

Cori understood. "They
wanted
to draw attention to the murders. Emmet Wyatt was lured back to New Orleans and shot. I would be the second witness pulled back and killed. It was meant to be a warning to the other three eyewitnesses. Come back to New Orleans, and you'll die."

Joey knew what she said was true. That put all of the other witnesses in dire jeopardy. Somehow, he had to relay this information back to his office. There was another matter, though.

"At first, Kit set you up as a witness. He wanted you to testify against Ben DeCarlo. Now it seems he's switched allegiances. Did he say anything that might explain that?"

Cori thought back to what had been said. There was nothing to explain Kit's sudden change of heart where Ben DeCarlo was involved. "Maybe the pro-Ben forces offered him a bigger paycheck." She felt as cynical as she sounded. There had been a time when she'd thought Kit was a force for justice, a man who lived out his convictions every day. For a woman who lived in New Orleans, Louisiana, where the sun shone hot year round, she had certainly fallen victim to a snow job.

"I can't seem to let it go," Joey admitted. "There has to be an explanation, and if we could just figure out how the forces have shifted, then maybe we could figure out a way to escape." His shoulders drooped. "I thought I was so smart bringing you out here. I had the greatest plan. I knew I could protect you. Now my sister is wounded and in danger of dying, and I can't find a way to get us to a safer place."

Cori had to distract him. Joey's confidence in his own abilities was a key to their survival. If he began to doubt himself, the results could be disastrous. "Did you recognize any of the men in the boat?"

"Yeah, Aaron. The one with the gun to his chest." Joey was bitter at the knowledge that his friend was in danger because of him.

"Anyone else?" Cori pressed gently.

"There were four of them, not counting Aaron. When they circled the cabin, I wondered what they were up to. I thought maybe Aaron hadn't told them about the alligators."

"Apparently he didn't, or Kit would never have tried it."

"I'm amazed he made it safely in. The cold weather has made them sluggish, I suppose. When the boat came back around with only three of them, I wasn't worried. I can see that's another area where my strategy didn't pay off."

"In the long run, it did." She blocked out the scream, the grass shifting, the slide of the reptile not far from her. She didn't allow the fact to translate into feelings. She could not risk such turmoil. "Is there any chance of someone coming out here to stay in the cabin?"

"No, Aaron would have made sure none of the guys would even think about it. He knew how dangerous it would be."

Cori left the fire and went to the stove. "I'm going to make some soup. At least we can have something hot and nourishing to eat. They're stuck on a boat, guarding the exit. Do you think they found Laurette's boat?"

"I don't know. I imagine they think we're stuck here."

"True, but they can't be one hundred percent sure. They can't risk leaving, so they're as stuck as we are. And they're cold and hungry. We're warm and soon to be fed. Laurette might be able to take some of the broth. We need to keep her as strong as possible. She has to fight that infection with her own resources until we can get her help.''

In the dim light cast by the single lantern, Cori built a small fire in the wood-burning stove and used the items Laurette had brought for sandwiches to make soup. Aaron had also brought in a few vegetables, and in fifteen minutes she had what she thought was a healthy combination ready to go. The busier she kept her hands, the better she felt.

She paused long enough to stare into the room where Laurette was stretched out on the only bed.