Hall, Jessica (16 page)

Terri wanted to go home and go to bed and stay there for a few
weeks, but she resigned herself to one more stop as she got to her feet.
"Thanks, Gray. I owe you."

"Pray I never collect, or you may have to run away to Canc
ún
with me and two suitcases filled with skimpy black bikinis." He came
around the desk and tapped the end of her nose. "See you, Ter."

"Marc LeClare was your
father."
The disbelief in
J. D's voice was sharp as a slap.

"I told you, you wouldn't believe it." Sable tucked her
cold hands under her arms and stared at the dried stains on the scrubs pants
she'd stolen.

Caine Gantry had frightened her, but not as much as J. D. had,
showing up out of nowhere. She'd barely pulled herself together when he'd
jammed her against his car and kissed her.

If you call that kissing.
She touched a fingertip to
her bottom lip, which still stung where the edge of his teeth had cut into it.
The violence of it had rocked her down to her heels—the Jean-Delano she had
loved had never laid a finger on her in anger—but it had drawn something from
her as well. A strange and deeply feminine response, one that had kept her from
struggling under his hands and his mouth. It had made her acquiesce, and yet it
created an intense desire to do more than simply yield to his anger. She'd wanted
to revel in it.

Maybe I would have been safer staying with Caine.

J. D. slowed down, then pulled the car off to the side of the road
and killed the engine. He sat in silence, not saying or doing anything for
several minutes.

When he finally spoke, his voice remained hard and cold.
"I've known Marc most of my life, and he never mentioned you. Not once.
Not even when we were dating, for Christ's sake."

"He didn't know about me. My mother never told him that she
was pregnant with me. She never told me that he was my father, either."
Fresh grief spread inside her as she realized she would never know her real
father now—she would only have that first, awkward meeting to remember him by.

"Your mother was a Cajun girl." It wasn't a question.

She knew what he was implying—Marc LeClare belonged to one of the
oldest and wealthiest Creole families in New Orleans—he and her mother wouldn't
have been introduced by mutual friends. "Evidently they met when Marc got
lost in the swamp. My mother found him and brought him home. Her father, my
grandfather, took him back to the city."

He turned toward her. "And just like that, they fell in
love."

"Marc did, or at least that's what he told me when we met. I
think my mother took a little longer to convince, but she was pretty young,
too." She shrugged. "He came back to see her the next day, and he
kept coming back. He told me that summer was the happiest time of his
life."

"Marc LeClare and a Cajun girl." He shook his head,
still projecting utter skepticism.

"Why is it so hard to believe, J. D.? My mother was a
beautiful, gentle woman." Bitterness made her add, "Besides, you went
slumming yourself once, remember? It happens."

His eyes narrowed.
"I
was never ashamed of you, Sable.
I was proud of you. I
bragged
about you."

Never in her hearing. She shifted her shoulders again. "It
doesn't matter. They're both dead now and no one ever has to know."

He started to say something, stopped, then asked, "Why didn't
your mother tell you about Marc?"

"I don't know."

"Why wouldn't she tell Marc about you?"

"I think she was afraid. Papa remembered some well-dressed
people coming down to the bait shop to see my mother toward the end of that
summer. He thinks they might have been Marc's parents. He didn't know what they
said to her, but she broke it off with Marc right after that. By then she must
have known that she was pregnant with me." She traced a circle around one
of the bloodstains. "My grandparents sent her to stay with her relatives
in Mobile, and that's where I was born. She didn't come back to the Atchafalaya
until I was a few months old."

He processed that in silence for a moment, then asked, "Is
Marc's name listed on your birth certificate?"

She nodded. "She hid it from everyone, but I think she wanted
me to know. It's hard to say—Papa said she never told him. He found my birth
certificate only after she died. She had it and some letters from Marc that she
saved from the fire."

"Fire? What fire?"

"A few weeks after my mother returned to the Atchafalaya,
someone set fire to the old bait shop. Remy—my papa—got me and my mother out,
but both of my grandparents died in the fire. Remy was burned so bad they
didn't think he'd live, either, but he survived. Bud Gantry was arrested, and
Remy and my mother got married and moved back deep into the swamp, where his
family lived."

"Bud Gantry?"

"Caine Gantry's father—he set fire to the house." She
glanced back toward the road that led to Gantry's outfit. "Bud always
claimed it was his own idea, but folks around here were pretty sure someone had
hired him to do it—he had money the week before, and he bragged about getting
more on top of that. He died the second day he was in prison, before anyone
could find out who paid him to do it."

Something cracked and whined, and metal pinged. Sable barely had time
to register the sounds when J. D. grabbed her shoulder and shoved her forward.
"Down!"

There was a second sharp crack. Glass exploded over her head from
a hole in the windshield, pelting her with sharp fragments.

Gunfire?

"Stay down."

J. D. rammed the car into gear and pulled back onto the road, then
lunged over and swore violently as the driver's-side window shattered. Sable
watched him jam his foot down on the accelerator and clutched the seat, bracing
herself as the car fishtailed wildly.

"J. D.!"

He had his gun in his hand and fired twice at someone through the
ruined window. The explosive sound of the shots he fired and the smell of the
gunpowder made her bury her face in the seat with her hands over her ears.

There were two loud, different explosions beneath the car, and the
front end of the car dropped without warning.

"Hold on!" J. D. hit the brake as the car slid sideways.
Sable was thrown from the seat and into the ceiling
liner
as the car skidded off the road and jolted wildly through the brush.

There was a moment that felt like they were flying through the
air, then a tremendous crash. Sable felt J. D.'s hands on her a fraction of a
second before dark, cold water blasted through the hole in the windshield,
flooding the interior.

"Grab on to me." He kept an arm around her as he turned
and used his foot and arm to force the driver's-side door open. More water and
a tangle of weeds rushed in as the car began to sink quickly. The smell of
floutant
was raw and strong. J. D. checked her face, then clutched her closer.
"Grab my shoulders and hold your breath."

Sable held on as he dragged her out of the car and under the
water. The water was dense and numbing, and it pressed against her ears. He
kicked them free of the car, and then hauled her around to the front of him.
She swam with him, using her legs to propel them away from the sinking wreck.
Just as her vision grayed and she thought her lungs would burst from the lack
of oxygen, he guided her up to the surface.

The first breath she took almost made her cough, but J. D. put a
hand over her mouth and spoke close to her ear. "Be quiet. Someone's
coming."

Fresh horror spread through her as she realized whoever had been
shooting at them had come to see if they'd survived the crash. She nodded and
swam beside J. D. to the far side of the sluggish river, where he pushed her up
through a thick patch of cordgrass onto the bank, then hoisted himself from the
water.

There was movement through the scrub on the other side of the
river, and the sound of the last of the air bubbling up from the sunken car. J.
D. covered her with his body, pressing her down in the thick tangle of
weeds
and cypress leaves. She held her breath and felt her heart skip a beat when she
spotted a shadowy form appear on the very edge of the river.

After an eternity of silence, the figure turned around and
retreated back to the road.

Sable closed her eyes and let all the air she'd been holding out
in a rush. She was bruised and cold and wet but she was alive.
They
were
alive.

"Sable." J. D. lifted himself up and to the side, then
gently turned her over onto her back. "Baby, are you all right?"

She couldn't speak—her mouth wouldn't work— and then she realized
she still had her jaw clenched. She lifted a hand to push herself up but it was
shaking badly. "I think so."

"It's okay." J. D. helped her to sit up and cradled her
with one arm, still watching the other side of the river. "Looks like he's
gone. I'll get you out of here and to someplace safe."

What he was saying didn't make sense. "I thought you were
going to take me to jail. For stealing that car."

"No. We're going to find out who killed Marc," he said,
pushing the wet hair back from her eyes, "and who's trying kill you."

She thought of Caine Gantry, whom she had known all her life. She
had never thought him capable of murder—and if he'd wanted her dead, why had he
tried so hard to chase her off tonight? It didn't make sense.

If she told J. D. about seeing Billy Tibbideau at the hospital,
he'd have Caine arrested and Gantry Charters shut down—just as she had warned
Caine's crew. A lot of families would suffer; the same families she was trying
to help. She couldn't allow that to happen.

Sable had never agreed with the way that Cajuns protected their
own. It allowed too many men to
operate outside the law and get away
with it. Yet until she had indisputable proof that Caine Gantry was behind
Marc's murder, she had no choice but to do the same.

After hearing from Terri Vincent that J. D. and the only witness
in the LeClare case had vanished, Cort went directly to speak with Captain
Pellerin. The chief of Homicide refused to turn the case over to Cort's arson
task unit, and used the media frenzy and the victim's high profile as the main
reasons for keeping it under his control.

"Since your brother is the lead detective on the case, you
two should have no problem working together." Pellerin sounded
indifferent, but he looked like he'd been put through a hand wringer backward.
"Let us know what you and your team find, and keep the lines of communication
open."

Cort didn't bother arguing, but left the station and went to the
warehouse district and the crime scene. A fire truck remained parked at the
curb beside the ruined building, where it would stay until an all clear was
given by the chief scene investigator. Since the city had followed standard
emergency procedure and cut power to the entire block, temporary auxiliary
lighting hooked up to portable generators provided lighting. Yellow barrier
tape ringed the entire building now, and a staging area had been set up to
provide work space for the investigators.

The unmarked white van used by Cort's task force had been backed
up to what had been the entrance of the building, and its rear doors remained
open. As he parked and approached the van, he saw two of his techs carrying out
evidence bags filled with broken glass. Both men were dressed in disposable
outerwear and heavy-duty gloves, which served to protect them
from
any residual heat while keeping them from contaminating the crime scene.

"Marshal." One of the men, Gil McCarthy, placed his bag
in an open tub in the back of the van and stripped his gloves off as he came
over to him. "Warren said you'd be back tonight."

Cort stared at the broken, blackened walls. The air smelled of
wet, burned wood, melted plastic, and exhaust from the portable generators.
"Give me an update on this."

"We've already done the safety sweep—didn't sniff out any
airborne toxins or secondary devices. Structure's pretty much totaled, but the
building inspector has marked a couple of potential collapse areas inside.
Whoever did this knew what he was doing." Gil nodded toward the van.
"We found remnants from what we're pretty sure were six individual
gasoline bombs."

"All clear glass bottles with cotton rags?"

Gil nodded. "Same type used for the other two."

Cort's team dealt every week with the most common of incendiary
devices, which were often made from improvised materials. Flammable liquids
like gasoline, along with gunpowder and kerosene, were readily available to the
public, and the easiest tools with which to build a firebomb. "Where did
you find the body?"

"On the second floor. We got pictures and video of everything
before we let the coroner move him. Pretty cut-and-dried, though—he wasn't
moved." Gil gestured toward the temporary mapping station set up next to
the front entrance, where plans for the building and a detailed grid map of the
scene had been placed. Inside the front entrance, numbered Day-Glo orange flags
marked spots where evidence had been collected.