A Twisted Ladder (9 page)

Rémi stalked to where Jacob stood and gripped the shotgun. He leaned his face in close.

“Put that away!”

Jacob’s harsh expression flashed in a burst of lightning, purple veins bulging at his neck. Rémi glared at him. They stared nose to nose while the thunder crackled and the rain streamed over their faces. Jacob’s lips were curled in what was surely a precursor to a fight, and Rémi was ready for—even looking forward to—whatever might come.

But suddenly Jacob relented. He slumped, returning the shotgun to his pack, and leaned against his mount with his head lowered.

Rémi regarded the workers. He breathed heavily against his own fury in the wet air, sorry that Jacob had backed down even though he knew a fight would cause more woe than it was worth. He joined his brother-in-law beside the horse.

“I’m sorry, Rémi,” Jacob said. “It’s just that in Kentucky . . .”

“This is not Kentucky! Where is your father?”

Jacob sighed and squinted in the direction of the river. The sound of moving water was all around them.

“He’s with my mother and little sister, down at the train station. They’re gonna try to get to higher ground.”

Rémi flushed. “At the train station! While his friends and neighbors are trying to save his homestead!”

Jacob lowered his head to a sulk. Rémi’s fist was balled, longing to connect with Jacob’s cheekbone. But he held steady and instead released a rueful laugh, and put his hand on his brother-in-law’s shoulder.

“It does not really matter,
mon frère
, because this levee will not hold. We must get these men away from here.”

Jacob closed his mouth and opened it again, but did not speak. Rain dripped from his hat and thickened to drowsy beads at his nose. He drew in a breath and dipped his chin once. Rémi squeezed his shoulder, then returned to the group.

“Allons, c’est fini.”
Rémi told his men.

Many of the workers from Glory and the other plantations did not speak French, but they recognized the content of Rémi’s words, and responded by whisking blankets, tools, and other supplies into the cart. Francois loaded it with the Terrefleurs workers, and they headed back down the sodden road toward home. The sheriff set out on horseback to evacuate people from nearby plantations, and Jacob turned in the direction of the Glory main house. Men from other plantations dispersed, too, moving rapidly along the high ground.

And then the levee broke.

Rémi and four of the Glory men were still standing by. A small gush of water burst from the lower weave of earth and board, and the men erupted with shouts of alarm. Rémi grabbed the reins of his horse and pulled her up the hill as the workers scrabbled to high ground.

From above, the five men watched the wall of sandbags bow outward like a giant bubble, with a groan like a ship that had topsided. And then it gave way in a crumbling outpour.

The lead wave tore into the land. The muddy river followed in a steady crush, flowing in all directions over flat land like a drop of oil spreading in a pot of water. The men huddled on the crest, surprised to have escaped being swept away.

Rémi turned to them. “Get everyone out!”

They scattered over the hillside in the direction of the Glory workers’ housing. Rémi mounted his horse and sped toward Terrefleurs. He was going to need his bateau.

NEW ORLEANS, 2009

I
N THE FOYER OF
a grand mansion on St. Charles Avenue, Madeleine handed her wrap to an attendant and smoothed her white satin strapless gown. This kind of gala, hosted by the New Orleans Historic Preservation Society, wasn’t usually her thing, and she wondered how Samantha had managed to convince her to come.

“Drop Jasmine off at my place,” Sam had said. “She can play with Moose and Napoleon. There’s bound to be someone at the gala who knows where Daddy Blank is.”

Daddy was indeed an ardent preservationist. That was the thing: He was just as comfortable among New Orleans’s elite as he was among the winos. Much in the same way he was just as likely to sleep on the finest pillow-top mattress as he was to spend the night stretched out in a damp alley, whichever way the breeze carried him.

Madeleine allowed Sam to steer her to the main ballroom. “You’re going to be glad you came. You might just take an interest in preservation.”

Madeleine rolled her eyes.

Samantha accepted a champagne flute from a passing tray and jumped right into the business of sipping and mingling with her friends. She withdrew a pack of Capris and turned to Madeleine. “Going out to the courtyard for a puff. Wanna come?”

Madeleine waved her off. “No thanks, I want to take a look around. Let me know if you hear anything about you-know-who.”

Sam nodded, and then said, “I know you’re here on a mission, but try to relax a little, OK? This is supposed to be fun.”

She strode away, disappearing into the laughter beyond the French doors. The crowd stuttered along, flowing from reception to the ballroom with the rhythm of blood through an artery. No sign of Daddy. Madeleine felt a prickling at the back of her neck. That sense of being watched. She turned, and blinked in surprise.

“Hello, Madeleine.”

“Oh. Hello, Zenon.”

HE WAS STANDING ONLY
a few feet away, one shoulder dropped and a hand in his pocket, the other hand holding a mixed drink—what looked like a scotch and soda.

“You looking fine tonight Maddy.” Zenon’s manner of speech assumed a kind of intimacy that caused the hair to rise on her skin, his stare traveling the length of her as if taking liberties. “Mighty fine, yeah.”

She didn’t reply. She felt an odd vibration in her blood. A rise in temperature that triggered a sheen at her neck. She looked away.

But he took a step forward, and the sensation intensified. His gaze invaded her with a long, thin trail of heat along her skin, blazing a wake of sweat over each curve.

“Zenon, I . . .”

She thought of the conversation at the flower shop, and how Anita had spoken of him. Madeleine had never thought of Zenon in that way before, but now . . . No, it wasn’t attraction. It seemed more like a strange kind of intrusion. She’d felt this way once before when her home was burglarized. And as Zenon stood opposite her now she sensed the nearness of his abdomen, his lean build, a teenage memory of his plate armor muscles that tensed as he’d once labored in his yard in Bayou Black. She’d seen him that way, skin glistening in the sun as he’d bent his back to overgrown shrubs, or leaned over the open hood of a throwaway car he’d salvaged.

She tried to shake away the sensation. “Zenon . . .”

His gray eyes held steady.

She scraped her teeth together. “I didn’t . . . I . . . I didn’t know you . . . you cared anything about historic preservation.”

He said nothing at first, but the affront in his eyes hinted that he knew she was trying to escape the moment.

Mercifully, he played along. His words came slow and deep. “People nowadays, they wanna do everything lackadaisical. It’s only in the older buildings that you find a true sense of craftsmanship. Besides.” He turned to the side, and Madeleine followed his gaze to the ballroom, where a wheelchair held the glowering form of Chloe LeBlanc. “Miss Chloe convinced me to come here tonight.”

“Chloe?” Madeleine gave a start.

He returned her gaze. “I’ve been helping her out in a few matters.”

Madeleine was puzzled. But the longer she stood in silence, the deeper she slid back into the quicksand of his gaze, and she wrestled to free herself from it. He had her on a thread and he knew it. And he seemed to want to keep her there.

Her senses burned. A strangely familiar cobweb settled over her mind, a betrayal, and her hands lifted almost of their own volition. They settled over her belly and felt the sleek satin fabric, a delicate overlay that heated when layered between the skin of her torso and that of her hands. And those hands wanted to move higher, up above her ribs.

Her heart raced. She felt exposed, unclean. It was as if she couldn’t control her own movements. She turned away from him abruptly, hands shaking. Her eyes focused beyond the corridor, to the cool white marble of the entrance hall.

She blurted, “Have you seen my father?”

She heard blood throbbing at her ears and was unwilling to meet his gaze. But Zenon did not reply. He fell silent, and remained that way until she dared to look upon him again. And when she did she saw that his eyes had changed. The intensity had dimmed to frustration. He looked away, seeming to cast his thoughts elsewhere.

“Daddy Blank. I don’t know.” He snorted and looked down, and then up at her again. “Look, I’m sorry about Marc. Been meaning to tell you.”

She swallowed.

“We were real close when we were kids, remember?” he said. “You and me and Marc? Things changed over the years and that’s a damn shame. Marc was one of the good ones, yeah. I think he might’ve done something that he weren’t proud of.”

This left a bad taste in her mouth. Marc’s sense of guilt over the electrocution had been plain to everyone. And the usual arguments reared in her head: an accident; in the electrical field this was a common tragedy.

Zenon watched her face as he spoke. “Wish I could have talked to Marc before he shot hisself.”

Madeleine wavered. Tears emerged and she shook her head. “It’s all right Zenon. We all have regrets.”

He stepped toward her. “Do we?”

She straightened her back.

The intensity returned to his stare. “Is that how it goes then, Madeleine? We just keep fighting our instincts and leave it at having regrets?”

And at once the tide of heat washed over her again. Fierce and ringing, saturating every cell. So sudden it stole the breath from her lungs. And somehow she knew that he was doing something to her. The scientist disconnected from her body and observed that these compulsions were not her own. And yet that didn’t make any sense. She took a step backward. He caught her wrist.

“How long you gonna fight it?” His eyes, stark and blue, forced their unsanctioned gaze into her.

She shook her head. “Stop. Zenon, don’t.”

And she yanked away, but he held her firm. His stare gripped her with the same intensity that he gripped her wrist.

“Don’t what? Stir up some primitive urge? I think you’d like that, yeah. I think you’d like that a whole lot. Don’t struggle with me,
chère
, you might just stir it up in me.”

And she felt him sweep her in. A whirlpool devoid of oxygen or emotion or anything but the most basic, instinctual causations. And her mind did struggle.

“Stop it!” She wrenched herself from him.

His eyes lit, and his lips parted to a gleam of teeth. A look that sent fear charging through her.

But someone stepped between them, the height of his shoulders forming a barrier between Madeleine and Zenon.

“Excuse me. I’m a friend of Miss Madeleine. Have we met?”

She saw the clean, strong neck stretching below cropped brown hair, and realized it was Ethan Manderleigh. His words conveyed spotless polite, but the posture was that of a rooster ready to sharpen his talons.