Heather Graham (33 page)

One-Eyed-Jack returned to the bar area to tell them that the back was completely empty.

There was no one to tell. Even his boss was gone.

A
NN HAD PLANNED ON
hiring someone to take her out to the bayou, but she wondered if that wouldn’t take her too long—she wouldn’t have much time before someone realized she wasn’t home—and if it wouldn’t become too complex.

She drove straight out to where the boats were kept and selected the best one. She was afraid she wasn’t going to be able to start the motor, but three little pulls on the cord and it was humming away.

It was a long ride, shooting across the open water. Long enough for her to warn herself that she was an idiot. She shouldn’t be out here alone.

Who should she be with?

In all of this, it seemed, there was only one totally trustworthy person. One person who hadn’t been involved with Gina. Who had loved Gina, not with passion, but with tenderness.

Mama Lili Mae.

And Mama Lili Mae had warned her not to trust the people closest to her. The people she should trust.

She was a fool. She knew Jon, and she knew Mark. She hadn’t known Mark long, but she knew him well.

Or did she?

The doubts plagued her as she pressed on relentlessly across the water, glancing up at the sky now and then.

She swore as she did so.

There was another storm coming. The sky was already turning gray.

She had to hurry.

But there was no way for her to hurry. Once she’d crossed the open water, the hard part started; going the right way within the tangle of the bayou. She’d been out here only once. Thank God for Gregory’s clear-cut manner of going places. It had, at least, been easy to traverse the main body of water.

Then, of course, she had to cut the engine, and hope to find the landing spot for Mama Lili Mae’s property.

The first channel she took was completely wrong; she came all the way back. She took another wrong turn, then another.

She passed Mark’s cabin, and grew excited to realize that she was at last on the right track. She rowed around and saw what she was certain was the proper landing.

There were three boats drawn up there already. She rowed her own carefully up alongside the others.

She shivered. The rain was imminent. The day was dark.

Mama Lili Mae’s was right up the path. Jacques Moret wouldn’t be there; he was in jail.

She had to be safe.

Ann stepped out of the boat and into the shallow water, drawing her boat up. She started up the path she’d learned from Gregory and Cindy.

After a few feet, she paused.

She was being followed.

Ann started to run, then paused again. Her fear had sent her crashing into the bush.

In the wrong direction.

Hold, pause, get your bearings
, she told herself. Oh, God, she was so ridiculously close!
Find the right path, and walk fast!
she warned herself.

“Ann!”

She heard a hushed whisper, very near her. A female voice, she thought.

“Ann!”

The soft, feminine voice again.

Then a louder voice.

“Ann! Sweet Jesus, Ann, are you out there?”

It was Jon. Calling to her. Jon Marcel. Her ex-husband. Who had been covered in Gina’s blood.

She hunched down in the bushes. Oh, God. There were rustlings in the foliage everywhere, so it seemed.

The thunder clouds were rolling in all around her.

She heard swearing. She ducked low, and looked through the branches around her.

She sucked in her breath. A man was walking by. She couldn’t see him. Was it Jon?

Or someone else. She heard the swearing again.

Jimmy...? Jimmy Deveaux? The cop she didn’t trust?

“Ann!” She turned, crashing right into Cindy McKenna.

“Cindy!”

“Ann!” Cindy drew a finger to her lip, then beckoned to Ann. “It’s Jimmy!” she warned Ann.

“Jimmy Deveaux?” Ann whispered back.

Cindy nodded strenuously. “Let me get you out of here.”

“You can get to Mama Lili Mae’s?”

“Yeah, but we’ve got to shake Jimmy first. Please, Ann, be quiet. Did you know—he slept with Gina. He was blackmailing her. He—I think that he killed her.”

Ann couldn’t breathe. She felt as if a tremendous weight was crushing down on her chest.

“Come on!” Cindy said.

They started off. They could hear Jimmy thrashing around the bushes.

“Mrs. Marcel? Mrs. Marcel! It’s Detective Deveaux. Please, can you hear me? We’ve come to help you. We’ve—”

“Don’t listen!” Cindy cried, tugging at Ann’s shirt. “Come on, come on, run!”

Ann followed her, carefully skirting the area where Jimmy was flushing the bushes, looking for her.

“How can you be so sure it was Jimmy?” Ann whispered nervously.

“I—I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. They’re all over! Oh, God, one of them is a killer.”

“Who’s all over?”

“The two cops. Mark and Jimmy. They were both sleeping with her, you know. And Jon. Jon is here. He slept with her the most. Come on, let me get you farther away; we’ve just got to get out of here. Someone is trying to kill you, Ann.”

Cindy caught Ann’s hand. She started to draw her along a path through the bushes. They ran, going faster and faster. Ann began to lose her breath. She tugged on Cindy’s hand.

“Wait, stop! We’ve got to stop for a minute. Cindy, this is crazy. They surely aren’t in on this together. And one man could hardly kill us both that easily. Maybe none of them did it; maybe Harry Duval did it!”

“Harry just likes sex,” Cindy said.

“Men do seem to like sex,” Ann said dryly. Her side was killing her. She forced Cindy to stop.

“And women!” Cindy blurted angrily.

Ann bent over to slake the ache in her side. She looked up at Cindy. Her pretty face was twisted in a strange mask.

“Cindy, we need to just go back. They can’t kill me if they’re all together. We’ll go to Mama Lili Mae’s. Make some sense out of this.”

“They all thought Gina liked sex with them. Like Harry. He thought that Gina couldn’t really leave him, just because he thought he was such a stud. He used to make us come to him together, because he got such a kick out of watching. And when she was alive, he wanted Gina.”

Something about the way Cindy was speaking made Ann acutely uncomfortable.

“Cindy, you don’t have to tell me about this—”

“It’s all right. You remind me of Gina, a little bit. Oh, you’re from the pure side of town, of course. But Gina could have been so much more than what she was...They did it to her. We were going to get out together.”

“You were friends,” Ann said carefully. “But then Gina fell in love with Jon.”

“We were more than friends,” Cindy said. “I really didn’t want Jon to have to pay for her murder; he was decent to all of us. Most men aren’t. But then again—it was Jon’s fault, and it might have been best if he’d just died. I killed that idiot dikey bisexual just because they told me that Jon had survived. I had to make it look like someone was killing strippers or club girls. Who the hell would have known it was probably the prig’s first time in such a place?”

“Cindy, you can’t mean—”

“Oh, Ann! Yes, I do mean! I didn’t want to kill Gina; she just wouldn’t listen to me. She was going to leave me, and marry Jon. Just walk away! She was all that I had. We’d hated men together forever, even though she kept sleeping with some guys because she wanted to. She had a hang-up on the cop for the longest time...but it wasn’t right. She’d tell me about him. She’d tell me about him when we made love together. She did the same when she first started out with Jon; then she got quiet; then she was fooling around more and more with that stupid voodoo stuff in the cemetery with Jacques Moret...” Cindy paused, smiling broadly. “I tried to kill you last night, you know. Jacques could have taken the blame real easy since he was running around in stupid voodoo robes. That would have worked nicely. But this will do okay. They’ll find the knife in your room soon enough. And Jon Marcel will be out here, so that when you’re found, it will be a real tragedy. The ex-wife who tried so hard to prove her marauding guy innocent of murder—a victim herself. It’s too bad—I really wanted someone to pay besides Jon, but he’ll have to do.”

Ann barely breathed, just staring at Cindy.

It was unbelievable.

She’d been afraid of Duval, of Jacques Moret. She’d even had doubts about Mark’s partner—her own ex-husband, and even Mark.

And here was Cindy. Telling her about an affair that she’d never imagined.

Telling her that she’d killed the two women.

“Did you knock Gregory out?” Ann asked her. What the hell did she do now? Keep Cindy talking? Hope someone would stumble upon them? How far had they run?

“I tried to kill Gregory. He had just left Gina when I killed her. I was afraid he’d seen something.”

“He didn’t. But Jon did. It will come to him soon enough.”

“Who’s going to believe him when he’s locked up for murder himself?”

“It’s not going to be that simple.”

“They needed a murder weapon to convict him. Now they have it.”

“It still won’t be that simple! Even if he’s here now, he’s with Mark. Mark will know that he didn’t kill me. Cindy, you can’t run forever. You can’t keep killing more and more people because you will get caught!”

Cindy laughed.

“Sweetie, don’t you bet on justice being so damned just!”

Cindy reached into her pocket then. Ann tried to tell herself that she was small, but strong.

You can beat her!
she told herself.

But Cindy’s hand came out of her pocket, and Ann heard a
ker-plunk
and then a whistling sound.

She saw the switchblade in Cindy’s hand.

And her mind was made up.

She had to run. She dropped to the balls of her feet, grabbed up a handful of dirt, threw it into Cindy’s eyes, then sprang into action.

Screaming as she started out.

“I hear her!” Jon shouted.

“From where?” Duval demanded.

Mark was already running, beating his way through the trees and brush, sinking into the mud, crawling out of it.

“Damn!” he swore, as the rain started.

It pounded down. He kept going.

Ann ran and ran. Her hair fell into her eyes, soaked, blinding her.

She paused, grasping hard to a branch to draw the hair and water from her eyes.

She inhaled.

Closed her eyes, opened them.

Cindy was there. She made a swipe at her.

Ann cried out, ducking. The switchblade stuck into the tree. Ann made a dive for Cindy.

The switchblade slipped out of the tree just as they fell to the ground together. Cindy raised it over Ann’s head. Ann brought her knees in, kicking out hard, throwing Cindy off her.

Gasping, winded, she made it to her feet. She threw mud at Cindy, then started to run again.

“Ann!” Mark shrieked. The wind was carrying his voice away.

Damn that Duval! It had never occurred to him to tell anyone that the girls had been closer than even he had realized. Damn Duval, damn himself! He should have remembered the way Gina talked about Cindy, how careful she tended to be regarding the other girl’s feelings.

Another scream ripped out on the wind.

“Ann!” he cried out in anguish again.

He ran through the brush and the blinding rain.

Ann stumbled over a tree root and went rolling into the mud. Gasping, she tried to drag herself out. The mud was grasping at her, holding her.

Cindy sprang into view, rain and wind slamming into her. She didn’t seem to notice. She smiled despite the stinging pellets, walking almost casually to where Ann battled the suctioning mud.

“There you are!” Cindy said happily.

“Cindy!”

The sharp call sent Cindy’s head spinning around. Ann saw Mark approaching the woman, soaked himself, fighting the onslaught as he neared her.

“Mark, Mark! Be careful, she’s got a blade!” Ann cried. With tremendous effort, she pitched herself out of the mud, and went racing desperately toward Cindy, who held the blade behind her back now.

Waiting.

“No!” Ann cried, almost upon Cindy.

Cindy turned, the switchblade raised.

Ann shrieked, throwing herself to the side.

Cindy came crashing downward then, into the mud herself. Mark’s fingers were wound around her wrist.

The switchblade fell.

There was a slurping sound.

The mud sucked up the switchblade. Facedown in the mud, Cindy sobbed.

The rain continued to fall. Ann just stared down at her. Then at Mark.

“Can’t you ever just stay home when I ask you to?” he demanded wearily.

Very, very, very slowly, she smiled. The rain sluiced over his handsome face. His eyes were steady and gray, with just the slightest silver glitter. She didn’t know how he’d managed to be here again, he just had.

Jon, Jimmy and Duval made it into the clearing. They saw Ann and Mark, and Cindy down in the mud, still sobbing.

“I’ll get Cindy,” Duval said. “Jimmy, give me a hand?”

The two men picked her up.

Jon stared at Mark and Ann.

“Hey, folks, it’s raining, you know.”

“Yeah, we know,” Mark said.

“Go get out of the rain, Jon!” Ann told him.

Jon muttered, and departed.

Mark came over to Ann. He drew her into his arms and lifted her chin.

“Don’t you ever, ever listen?” he asked.

“Marry me,” she told him. “I make a really good wife. Ask Jon.”

“Why don’t I believe that marrying you will make you listen more to what I say?”

“Well, it may not. But then again, I really do like a good discussion. And I am willing to take advice. Most of the time.”

“Is that an invitation?” he queried.

“It’s an invitation for you to come up with a proposal,” she told him.

He smiled, lowering his eyes. Then he lifted her up, out of the mud, into his arms.

“Are you all right?” he asked anxiously.

“I’m all right.” But she shivered fiercely. “Oh, God, Mark! I knew Jon was innocent, but I was even afraid of him today. I was really afraid of your poor partner.”