Say You Love Me (14 page)

Not Lucinda.

This realization shook him to the core. His
reaction had everything to do with proximity, he told himself, to the fact
that Britta was a much more sexually oriented person than his wife had been.
To the fact that he'd been celibate for two years.

And maybe to the fact that Lucinda wouldn't have
been caught dead reading sexual fantasies. If he'd suggested they teeter on
the wild side or branch out in new positions or…other things he'd dreamed
about doing, she would have thought he was perverted.

He brushed sweat from his brow,
silently cursing the infernal heat, and he began to read again, hoping this
one might provide something more than arousal—like answers to the killer's
identity.

Jean-Paul shifted in his seat. So far, suspicious, but not anything
criminal.

His
suspicions raised, Jean-Paul searched for a signature, but found nothing.
The envelope was postmarked from the post office in town but there was no
return address, no post office box, nothing to indicate who had sent
it.

He sighed, stood
and handed it to Britta. “Read this. See if the guy sounds
familiar.”

Britta's face
paled as she digested the letter. “It sounds like the photographer I saw
watching me.”

Jean-Paul nodded. He didn't like it one damn bit,
either.

“I wonder if his
work is on display at the art festival.”

Jean-Paul stood. “Let's check and
see.”

“We still have a
couple more hours' worth of letters to read.”

“Let's divide them up and take them home for the
night.” Jean-Paul stretched his arms. “I'm getting antsy.” If this guy had
been watching Britta and was their killer, he wanted to find him
now.

He didn't intend to
take a chance on the sick bastard getting to her.

She nodded. “Let me call R.J. and tell him my
plans.” Jean-Paul frowned. He didn't want her anywhere near the
man.

* * *

J
EAN
-P
AUL WAS TENSE
. Britta
was tense. And the time was ticking by, counting off the seconds until
another woman died.

Britta tried desperately to stifle the guilt that consumed her. At
the same time, her emotions toward Jean-Paul ping-ponged back and forth. She
wanted to be near him. She felt safe by his side.

And she wanted to trust him with the
truth.

But not
yet….

She couldn't
bear to see the disappointment in his eyes.

Still, he kept her close to him as they toured the
art displays, his hand always guiding her along, his body always a buffer as
if he had assigned himself her protector.

Booths lined the walkways and square, stretching
on for miles. Artists' exhibits included ceramics, wood-carvings, wax
sculptures, metal art, junk and auto-parts art, along with every type of
painting imaginable—oils, charcoal, watercolors, textured art, sand
paintings—and bubble art, homemade voodoo dolls, serpent necklaces, gris
gris, woven clothing, baskets and Mardi Gras masks.

A fortune teller had set up camp,
along with a psychic who claimed to talk to the dead. Lines for both of them
snaked around the square. The dollmaker barely lifted his head to
acknowledge Britta as she passed. The mask artist worked diligently, deeply
intent on adding feathers to a morbid creation while admirers watched.
Booths offering local foods ranging from beignets to gator on a stick,
shrimp po'boys and gumbo scented the air.

An hour later, the sun disappeared behind dark
storm clouds, causing a chill in the air. A life-size wooden carving of a
crocodile from the Nile drew gatherers and a line formed for the wax
museum's latest display.

Just as they neared the museum, they found what they were looking
for. The artist had created a wall of photographs. Instead of faces, he had
only showcased the eyes and mounted them in black. All female, although the
pictures ranged with eye color, expression and depth. A very dark, imposing
display.

“Some of
them are the same subject,” Jean-Paul said, “only in different situations.
He wanted to capture their various moods.”

He pointed to a series of blue eyes, the eyes wide
with fear. “That could be Elvira's.”

A chill slid down Britta's spine. He was right.
And beside it rested a pair of brown eyes with amber flecks that could very
well belong to her.

Her gaze flew to the sign advertising his work. A shot of one dark
eyeball painted on a black background served as the logo.

Britta glanced up to see the bald man
who'd been watching her stride toward her. “What do you think of my
exhibit?”

“You're
the artist?” Jean-Paul asked.

He nodded and extended his hand. “Howard
Keith.”

“You took
pictures of me,” Britta said.

He shrugged. “You're a beautiful woman. I take
photographs of interesting subjects in the Quarter all the
time.”

“Why do you
choose to only photograph the eyes?” Jean-Paul asked.

“The eyes are the windows to the
soul. When you can look into a woman's eyes, you can see everything about
her. What she feels. What she thinks. If she's hiding
something.”

Jean-Paul
removed the letter from his pocket. “Mr. Keith, I'm Detective Dubois of the
New Orleans Police Department. Did you mail this letter to Miss
Berger?”

Keith
stared at the piece of paper and shrugged. “It's not a crime to submit to
the magazine, is it?”

“No,” Jean-Paul said. “But stalking is a crime.”

Keith drew back, his good eye raised.
“Who said anything about stalking? It's a free country. I can take pictures
of public property. I'm free to voice my opinion or fantasies if I like.” He
stared at Britta, his voice growing deeper. “Isn't that right, Miss
Berger?”

Britta
tensed. “Yes, but I don't want you to photograph me anymore. And I don't
like being followed.”

A small tattoo of a snake coiled on his neck made the hair on the
back of her neck prickle. She'd seen one like it before, years ago. The men
from the clan had worn it.

The clan that she had been running from ever since.

* * *

G
INGER
H
OLLIDAY BLINKED
through a drug-induced fog, the tiny room spinning in a pit of never-ending
black. Darkness cloaked the room, the stench of sweat and mold nearly
suffocating her. Her arms and feet were tied to the metal bedposts. She'd
cried for hours. Dirt and blood from her brawl with her attacker had
hardened on her face with her tears.

Night swept over the cabin and fear consumed her.
When he'd left her this morning, he'd promised to return, each hour that
passed drawing her closer to another insufferable attack.

At some point, she'd prayed he'd just
go ahead and kill her, but then her resolve to live had
returned.

Although hope
faded quickly. This dilapidated shack was tucked so far into the backwoods
that no one would look for her here.

On the heels of despair, thoughts of sweet revenge
surfaced. If she could just free her hands and feet long enough to grab the
knife, she'd cut off his damn balls, and he'd never again rape another
woman. Then she'd tie him up and watch him bleed to death while
he
listened to the eerie sounds of
the bayou. Let him envision the alligators nibbling at him while he lay
dying alone in the bowels of hell where he belonged.

Footsteps sounded outside on the
wooden planked porch. He kicked the door and it swung open. Her blood ran
cold. It was so black outside, the gnarled branches of the oaks looked like
the hands of a sea creature reaching toward her.

A sliver of moonlight caught his shadow, then
disappeared as if the bayou had snuffed it out. But in that brief fleeting
second, she saw the mask. A dark, eerie one of a monster.

He slowly began to undress. The sound
of buttons popping grated on her skin like fingernails scraping a
chalkboard.

“Please
let me get up and go to the bathroom.”

He paused, a sudden stillness filling the room
like the quiet before a storm. She expected him to deny her, but he slowly
walked toward her, untied her and dragged her into the bathroom. She was so
damn weak and disoriented from the drugs she could barely stand. But she
used the dirty facility, then stood, ran cold water and splashed it on her
face, trying to wash away the foul stench of his mouth on her skin. Her
bloodshot swollen eyes pierced the darkness, shining with terror in the
broken mirror. She jerked open the medicine cabinet, hoping to find a razor,
can of hair spray, anything to use as a weapon, but a bug crawled across the
rusted empty metal shelves and she slammed it shut.

“That's long enough.” His fingers
pinched her sore wrist as he dragged her toward the bed.

“Let me go,” she whispered. “Please,
I'll do whatever you want.”

“You'll do that anyway,” he growled.

This was her last chance. She spotted
her boots on the floor and tried to reach them, but he slammed his hand into
the side of her face. Pain exploded inside her temple and she blinked to
clear her vision, but white lights swam in front of her eyes. Still, she
kicked at him, but he flung her onto the bed. Another whack to her head and
the room went black.

Sometime later, she finally regained consciousness. He had retied her
to the bed, stripped his clothes and stood above her. He dribbled oil on her
skin, then massaged it into her bare arms and neck. She tried to scream, but
he'd gagged her so tightly, the fabric caught the sound. Another sliver of
moonlight caught his silhouette, highlighting a crisscrossing of scars on
his pale chest. Other red, fleshy, puckered scars that resembled burns
dotted his arms, and bite marks that could have come from a gator attack
marred his arms and torso. No wonder he wore the mask. He was hideous. A
monster.

He removed
a condom from the bedside table, then donned rubber gloves on his hands and
sprinkled something on the outside of the rubber.

She watched in horror as he peeled it over his
penis. Surely if he was using a condom, he didn't mean to kill
her.

He bent over and
whispered against her neck, “Say you love me.”

She shook her head no, but he slapped her again
and clenched her by the throat. “Say you love me. That you'll never leave
me. Then I'll save you.”

Desperation clawed at her as he loosened the gag. She gasped for air,
coughing, choking.

“Say it now.”

“No,” she rasped. “Never.”

He twisted her nipples, and his mouth bit down on
her neck. She closed her eyes and blocked out the feel of him as he pushed
inside her. Tears filled her eyes and dribbled down her cheeks, but she
imagined that she was somewhere else. A beach. The mountains. Drinking in
the fresh air. Looking at the heavens. The air was cool, crisp. She was all
alone. She'd start over. Leave her past behind.

Start in a new place where no one knew that she'd
spread her legs for strangers to pay her way through school.

“I said, ‘say you love me,'” he
groaned against her throat, “that you'll never leave me.”

Exhausted, she choked out the words,
sobbing as he bellowed his release.

Tears flowed down her cheeks and she silently
begged him to leave her alone with her misery. Instead, a violent pain shot
through her stomach. Bile rose to her throat and she sobbed as pain
slithered through her limbs and splintered all the way to her head. Then her
body began to jerk. What was happening to her?