KILLING ME SOFTLY (35 page)

And heal.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

E
douard balled his hands into tight fists. They wanted him to sit. To wait patiently. These things take time, the attending doctor had told him. He'd known Martin Guidry for more than half his life and trusted him with all of it, knew the man could and had worked miracles, but the pale green walls shrank with every excruciating minute that crawled by.

And the silence. God, the pulsing silence was worse than the cage they wanted him to wait in. It pounded in his ears, snickered and sneered and reminded. No way could he just hunker down on one of those little sofas like Laurelee Bertrand whose husband was having hemorrhoid surgery, and wait. The adrenaline rushed too hot and hard, like the full force of the floodwaters through the spillway.

Lena
. Sweet God have mercy, not Lena. She was going to be okay. He knew that. She had to be. Anything else—

Swearing softly, he strode to the nurse's station for the fiftieth time. And for the fiftieth time little Lucy McGregor, who should still be in diapers, damn it, flashed him a smile so tight with pity he wanted to slam his fist into something.

"I'm sorry, Sheriff, Dr. Guidry is still in with her. We'll let you know just as soon as—"

The double doors swung open then and a somber-looking Dr. Guidry stepped into the hall, walked toward Edouard.

He broke toward him. "Martin, thank God. How is she?"

"Let's go somewhere we can talk," the doctor said, and Edouard's heart damn near stopped.
"Mon Dieu, non—"

Martin took him by the arm and led him toward the emergency exit. "She's going to be okay," he said in a low but reassuring voice. "Her vitals are strong."

"The blood—"

"Puncture wound to the abdomen … a few inches from her liver. She's lucky. A few cracked ribs and marks on her arms. Whatever happened, Miss Lena Mae put up one hell of a fight."

The swell of pride was ridiculous. But damn it, he had been the one to teach her self-defense, all those years ago. For her own good, he'd told her. But there'd been plenty of good for him, too. When he let himself, he could still remember how she felt in his arms when he positioned her at the shooting range.

"You can see her now," Martin said. "She's a little groggy from the pain meds, but she's been asking for you."

His chest tightened. His heart slammed much the way it had the day a lifetime ago when he and Jesse had dared the girls to spend the night in the swamp. They had, but not without a close encounter with a moccasin. He could still see Lena's terrified face the morning after. He'd wanted to hold her so damn bad. And she, she'd slapped him across the face and walked away.

She'd always been a smart one, his Lena.

"Millie's on the way," he bit out, grabbing the pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. "I—I've got to go."

Martin frowned. "Ed, are you—"

"I'll be in touch." With one last glance toward the double doors, Edouard turned and walked away. A report at the station required his attention.

Lena did not.

The glitter in Cain's eyes stole Renee's breath. It was dark and it was volatile, but it was vulnerable, too, the irreconcilable combination she'd seen so many times in the dizzying days before the bottom fell out of her world. When he looked at her like that, everything else fell away. There were no trees or vines, no ferns, no birds squawking. No flowers fading.

No past ripping them apart.

No future that would never happen.

There was only Cain and the devastatingly familiar rhythm of her heart.

"Part of me wanted to die when you didn't recognize me," she whispered, because this was what she'd needed. What she'd craved. Like a torch in a cave, she'd needed to see the dark light in his eyes, to feel the slow burn all the way down to her soul. Now she inhaled deeply and stepped toward him, again lifted her hand and feathered her fingers against his jaw. "Then I looked into your eyes," she whispered, "and realized that you did."

Sunlight sneaked through the branches of the old oaks, casting his face in an odd combination of shadow and light. But he didn't move, didn't say a word. Just stood there looking at her as if she was skinning him alive.

"That's the collision course you kept warning me about," she added quickly. "Why you couldn't stay away from me. Because somewhere deep inside you recognized me." He'd all but told her so the night she'd woken him from the nightmare. "You're just so used to isolating yourself and ignoring your feelings, that you wouldn't let yourself accept what was happening."

Slowly, his hand came to the side of her face, and cradled. "Wintergreen," he said, and his voice was raw. "You still taste like goddamn wintergreen."

The flood of warmth was immediate. She wanted to step closer and curve her arm around him, put her head to his chest and hear the thrumming of his heart, but the truth wouldn't let her move.

"But you were right yesterday." She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "The Savannah you knew did die that night. I couldn't stay that person and survive. I had to shut myself off from everything and find a strength I never knew I had. It was like living without a soul."

She realized her mistake the second she felt his fingers tense against her face. His eyes went hard as his hand fell away. "Don't talk to me about living without a soul," he said in a voice devoid of any and all emotion. Then he turned and walked away.

Renee stood there a long moment and tried to breathe. She'd been wrong, she realized. Dead wrong. She'd seen the look in his eyes and let her heart take over, stepped onto hallowed ground not only as if she had some right to be there, but as if he wanted her there. The naiveté of her mistake twisted deep.

She hated that she had to go after him, hated that she needed him when he so brutally did not need her. But he knew his way around the swamp, and she did not.

Even on the edge of winter, green dominated the land. For so long she'd thought of fall as a season of death and decay, but as she pushed through a cluster of vines, she found it impossible not to see the primal beauty. Here, so far from the intrusion of man, there was a simplicity to the order of life. Trees grew, and trees died, trees fell into decay and started the cycle anew. Families and generations surrounded her, young saplings and those in their prime, tired, weary oaks and cypress that had seen war and drought and disease, but still stood, solid proof that no matter how grim the circumstances, life did go on.

Cain was just ahead of her, and as she pushed aside a clump of moss, she found him down on one knee, angling his camera up at a sprawling oak. Sunlight glinted through the branches and fell in fickle puddles around the knobby roots jutting out from the leafy carpet. Moss made the shadows dance.

Renee stopped as recognition hit. She'd been here before, stood in this very spot. She'd sat with her back to the massive trunk, engrossed in one of the historical romances her mother kept stashed between her mattresses, while nearby her brother worked on a duck blind.

This was
his
tree, the one he'd said reminded him of the poem "Evangeline"—the one immortalized through the photograph in Cain's gallery, next to the picture of the butterfly she'd taken the week before the attack.

"He was coming here." She felt that truth in her bones.

Adrian had always been drawn to this remote corner of the swamp, said he could think here, clear his mind.

Heart pounding, she turned to Cain, found that he'd shifted the lens of his camera to her. "Maybe part of him always knew this was where he would die."

Cain lowered the camera, confronted her with his eyes. "If that's true it doesn't bode well for us."

Because it hurt to look at him, she turned and moved toward the tree, lifted her hand to the trunk. Adrian had been coming here. Maybe he'd come alone. Or maybe—

…someone close to him set everything up…

Lena Mae's theory roared through her. Maybe Adrian had brought someone here with him. Someone he knew—someone he trusted.

Someone Cain trusted.

"You haven't told anyone about me," she said, spinning toward him, "have you?"

He slung his camera over his shoulder. "Just Gabe."

Someone he trusted—someone her brother had trusted. She felt the chill immediately, the truth she'd known all along, the reason she'd chosen to hide her identity, even from those she loved. Someone had wanted her dead—if they were to learn she still lived, it would be they who got the second chance, not her.

"What?" Cain asked, moving toward her.

She frowned. "Travis had a theory that whoever framed you was someone close. Someone you trusted, someone you'd never suspect."

"Travis was a drunk."

"He knew you were innocent," she shot back. "He just pretended otherwise to protect himself."

Cain narrowed his eyes and looked off into the swamp. She could see the wheels of his mind working, see the denial hardening the lines of his face.

"Who else could have done this to us? Who else would have had access to your keys and your car, your cologne, your voice?"

His eyes went hard. "There's no way Gabe—"

The name drilled through her. She grabbed his arm, felt everything inside of her go horribly still. "Who said anything about Gabe?"

"What do you think? The black one or the leopard one?"

Gabe looked up from his Blackberry and squinted toward the doorway. "I'm sorry, hon, what was that?"

Val sauntered into his study and struck a pose, tilting her head and giving him a slow smile, making it impossible for him to look at anything but the bikini that barely covered her breasts and hips. Two strings for the top, two strings for the bottom.

"Is the black too harsh? I could always take the leopard—"

He glanced at his watch and stood, didn't know how to tell her that their trip would have to wait two more weeks.

If they went at all.

"You could always take both," he said as she strolled toward him and pushed up on her toes, skimmed a kiss along his lips.

"How about neither?" she asked, running her hands down toward the fly of his khakis.

He caught her hand and brought it to his mouth, pressed a soft kiss to the inside of her wrist. "Val, honey," was all he got out before the light in her eyes drained.

"Gabe—"

"I'm sorry," he said, but no longer had a choice. "Uncle Ed called, wants me to meet with him. Said it was important."

Her sigh damn near broke his heart. "All these late nights and secrets are starting to scare me. Are you sure everything's okay?"

He took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes, brushed a kiss across her mouth. "They will be."

Val stared out the window a long time after Gabe's car vanished into the dreary fall day. The days were shorter now. The holidays were close. The stores had already hauled out their Christmas merchandise even though Thanksgiving was still two weeks away.

The soft light of a lamp cast her reflection against the windowpane, and she frowned. There was a buzz inside her, a low, frenetic roaring, and no matter how many times Gabe promised everything was okay, it grew louder with each passing day. He was keeping secrets from her. She knew that. And it made her uneasy.

The gun was back. It had returned mere hours after she'd found it missing—and mere hours after Alec had died.

Gabe was involved. He denied it, but Val knew. He'd been there when the warehouse blew. She'd seen the cuts and bruises he'd tried to hide. Heard the hushed phone calls late into the night. When he'd finally come to bed, she'd felt the tension in his body and had worked for a long time on his shoulders, but her hands had not done the trick.

It was like living with a stranger.

They'd been together for three years. It hadn't always been smooth sailing, but during that time she'd learned what made Gabe tick. Or at least she thought she had.

Fighting a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature, she turned from the window and went to his study, carefully flipped through the neatly stacked files. It was the calendar that made her heart beat harder, the thick dark circle drawn around one of the days they were supposed to be in Barbados.

Then she noticed the folded sheet of paper wedged under his laptop and pulled it free.

Gabe swerved into his reserved spot and slammed on the brakes, shoved the gear into Park. He stared at concrete blocks surrounding him, but barely saw them.

Everything inside of him shook. Roared. His uncle's words played through him over and over and over, more insidiously with each second that ripped by.

He wanted them to be lies. He wanted Edouard to be wrong.

But he knew that his uncle rarely was. He would not have come to Gabe unless he was sure. Edouard had been rattled, not because of the information he'd delivered, but because Lena Mae Lamont had almost been killed.

The insanity had to stop.

On a vicious rush he pushed open the car door and strode toward the elevators, his Bruno Maglis echoing furiously through the quiet garage.

The elevator came quickly. He stepped in, jabbed the button, then waited.

Her door was open. That was the first thing he noticed as he strode down the hall. Her door was open whereas she frequently kept it shut.

He didn't knock. He didn't hesitate. He walked straight in and around her desk, refused to allow himself to remember the last time he'd seen her, how she'd tasted and felt and—

"Gabe." She minimized the document open on her laptop and stood. "Is something—"

"You set me up." The words were quiet.

They didn't need to be loud.

Something dark and dangerous flared in her eyes. "Gabe, what are you talking about?"

He just barely resisted the urge to take her shoulders in her hands. He knew better than to touch her, had no idea what would happen if he did. "Don't play games with me, damn it!"

Dark hair fell into her face. "What are you—"

"I know."
He could still hear Edouard's words, see the report one of his contacts had faxed him detailing the theory that the leak they'd all been searching for did not originate from the police department—but from the district attorney's office. "Every time you looked at me, all those seemingly casual conversations, little comments here, a touch there…" She'd played him perfectly, and like an idiot, he hadn't just fallen for it, he'd come back for more. "All a setup."