Praise for the novels of Stella Cameron

“Hard-boiled and hard-core.”

—Booklist on A Grave Mistake

“Those looking for spicy…fare will enjoy a heaping helping on every page.”

—Publishers Weekly on Now You See Him

“Cameron returns to the wonderfully atmospheric Louisiana setting…for her latest sexy-gritty, compellingly readable tale.”

—Booklist on Kiss Them Goodbye

A Marked Man
Stella Cameron

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Also by New York Times bestselling author

Stella Cameron

A GRAVE MISTAKE

NOW YOU SEE HIM

A USEFUL AFFAIR

KISS THEM GOODBYE

In loving memory of a faithful friend, Spike.

1990–2006

Chapter One

T he moon was a thin white wafer with a big bite missing.

Walking silent streets at night—alone—could be a bad idea. Staying in bed, half awake, half asleep, sweat stinging your eyes, sticking hair to your face, while the monster panic ate you up could be a whole lot worse idea. Nothing bad ever happened around here anyway.

Annie Duhon moved quietly through the town square in Toussaint, Louisiana. That violated moon, coy behind riffles of soft gray cloud, pointed a pale finger at the wide road lined with sycamores, stroked a shine on the windows of businesses and homes on either side.

A warm breeze felt friendly. Yesterday there had been a sidewalk sale and food fair. Holiday lights strung between trees on a triangle of grass in the center of the street were turned on at dusk; they were still on and bobbled, out of place for the time of year, but festive and comforting…briefly.

She ought to know better than be lulled by a few strands of quivering colored lights. She ought to turn back and lock herself inside her apartment over Hungry Eyes, the book shop and café run by the Gables, Toussaint’s only lawyer and his wife. They lived next door and she had an open invitation, almost an order to go to them at any time if she needed help.

Help, I had another bad dream. They’ve been happening for more than a couple of weeks and they get worse all the time. Someone dies but I don’t know who. It’s a woman. Could be me.

Sure she would tell them that, and what could they do about it?

A battered pickup clanked by and made a left turn at the next corner. When Annie reached the spot and looked for the vehicle, she saw it pull into the forecourt of Murphy’s Bar where a neon sign blinked on and off behind a grimy window. The small hours of the morning and some folks were still looking for company.

Annie kept walking. She had been here for seven months and felt happier than she had in years, until the nights came when she could not shut out terrible visions of death.

Ten minutes got her to St. Cécil’s church, glowing white in the darkness, Bayou Teche a faintly polished presence behind the church and the rectory on the other side of Bonanza Alley.

The bayou drew her, always had. She slipped past the church, reached the towpath and stood awhile, her thin cotton skirt caught to her thighs by warm currents of air.

A slap and suck sound, subtle, inexorable, reminded her how the bayou water kissed its banks on a night like this. Something swam, plopped, beat up a spray. A bass, maybe, or an alligator, or even a big rat. Rats reminded Annie of things she wanted to forget. She walked a few more steps and stopped. Noises swelled, pushed at her. Frogs grumbling, little critters skittering through the underbrush, a buzz in her ears, growing louder.

Annie turned around abruptly and retraced her steps. The breeze became a sudden wind, whipping leaves against her bare legs. A bird cried and she jumped, walked faster.

On Bonanza Alley again, she looked at the rectory. A subdued light shone in the big kitchen at the back but she knew Father Cyrus Payne always kept a light on in case a stranger happened by and needed a little welcome. That good man would be sleeping now.

There were not many good men like him.

Heat rose in her face and her cheeks throbbed. Speeding her pace only made the noises around her head louder. Low lights gleamed steadily behind the stained glass windows of the church. Annie stood still again and willed her heart to be quiet.

Slowly, she pushed open a gate in the white fence surrounding the churchyard. She stepped inside and walked along a path between tombs to a side door into St Cécil’s. Annie wasn’t a churchgoer, hadn’t been since she was a teenager. She gritted her teeth, climbed the steps into a small vestibule and turned the door handle, never expecting it to open. It did and she went inside. Church used to be real important to her, until she offended and the holy congregation suggested she shouldn’t be there.

Her mama had suffered even more than she had over that.

A wrought iron gate closed off a side chapel. Annie threaded her fingers through the scrollwork and peered into the candlelit cell beyond. Those candle flames glittered on gold thread in an embroidered hanging behind the little altar. She smelled incense, and old roses, their bruised heads hanging from frail, bent necks around the rim of a glass vase.

The roses reminded her of funeral flowers kept too long because when they were thrown out, the loss would feel more final. Death was final but while the tributes remained, before the false cheer of a life’s “celebration” died away and the sympathizers stopped coming around anymore, well then, the grieving ones could try to keep truth at bay.

Nights when she gave up on sleep brought images so clear they seemed real. She didn’t want them, or the thoughts that came with them.

Inside the chapel with the gates closed behind her, Annie sat on the cushioned seat of a bench, its high back carved into a frieze of wild animals and birds. She put her head in her hands. What would she do, what could she do? Push on, exhausted by frequent nights filled with ghastly images followed by occasional recurring flashes of the same sick dramas when she was awake? Yes, she guessed that was what she would do, and she would pray for the burden to be taken away.

She did not want to go home until morning. St. Cécil’s felt safer. Evil knew better than to enter God’s house.

Minutes passed and her head felt heavy. If she went to the rectory, Father Cyrus would take her in, she knew he would. He’d make her stay and want to listen to what troubled her.

Talking about her imagination wasn’t worth taking sleep from a busy man at this hour. And talking about the reality that haunted her from other times and places was out of the question—with Father Cyrus or anyone else.

Annie had come to Toussaint to take over a new position as general manager at Pappy’s Dance Hall and Eats just north of town. Since she’d first visited the place while she was back in school and planning a fresh direction for her life, Annie dreamed of owning something like Pappy’s one day. She’d never expected the dream to come true and working there felt unreal and wonderful.

Another unexpected surprise had been meeting Dr. Max Savage and falling into an unlikely friendship with him. He often stopped by Pappy’s after the lunch rush. Sitting with him while he ate had become a habit. His idea, not hers, but she probably looked forward to seeing him more than she ought to.

Max and his brothers, Roche and Kelly, planned to open a clinic in the area. Roche was also a doctor, and Kelly took care of business matters. There would be more doctors on the staff by the time they opened. Max persuaded her to go out a couple of times and said he wanted her to consider him a friend. She wanted to, but the last time she accepted an offer like his…well, the outcome hadn’t been good. She surely didn’t want Max to find out about either her past or her present troubles.

She and Max couldn’t be more different, he a highly regarded facial reconstructive plastic surgeon while Annie came from poor beginnings and had clawed for each handhold on the way to a modest, mostly trade education. Not that she wasn’t proud of what she had accomplished.

Truth was, she intended to remain in Toussaint and make already successful Pappy’s into a destination people came from all over to visit. She would get accustomed to being alone and whatever happened, she wouldn’t be falling back on her family in Pointe Judah, not so far from Toussaint. She loved them but didn’t need them, or anyone, to survive anymore.

She yawned and before her staring eyes, the candle flames blurred. Still watching the light, Annie lay on her side on top of the cushioned seat and pulled up her legs. There was no reason not to stay, just until it started to get light.

He trained the flashlight ahead and she couldn’t see his face behind the yellow-white beam. The beam bounced and jerked. She heard the sound of something dragging over leaves and sticks, rocks and sharp, scaly pinecones. Another noise, a clank-clank of metal on the stones was there just as it had been each time the man had come.

She heard him breathing, short, harsh breaths. But she also heard the sounds she made herself, a high little wheeze because she was so scared, her throat wouldn’t work properly.

What if he heard her?

She knew what he dragged behind him.

Her eyes burned. They burned every time. Too many times.

He dropped his burden and walked forward, his flashlight trained on a thick carpet of leaves.

Rain began to fall. It splattered the leaves on the ground, turned them shiny so she saw them clearly, distinct one from another.

Overhead, branches rattled together and wind whined.

If he looked up he’d see her. She was right there.

A scent swept at her nostrils. Coppery, like blood. And burned hair: there was no mistaking that, not when you’d smelled it so close before.

The man said, “Here we go,” as if he was with his children and he’d just found the ice-cream shop they’d all been looking for. More clattering and he poked through the leaves and mulch with the shining point of a brand-new shovel.

A woman’s body lay on the ground beside him, her eyelids burned off, and empty dark holes where her eyes had been. Her hair, nothing but a thin matted spongelike layer, shed filaments in the wind.

“Here we go,” the man said again. He didn’t start digging a hole but cleared debris from an area no more than two feet across. Poking and scraping quickly brought his satisfied sigh and he lifted the woman as if she weighed nothing. Rags of blackened clothing stuck to her rigid body.

“There we go,” the man said and dropped the corpse, headfirst into a hole that swallowed her.

Annie, her hands outstretched before her, ran at the man. “Bring her back. Give her back,” she cried. But when she reached for him he turned into fire, and she cried out in pain.

Her forehead struck the side of the altar. She fell to her knees, her arms upraised, and felt her left hand scorch. At the same moment she heard the sound of flame shooting along filaments.

She opened heavy eyes and saw a movement. On the far aisle of the church, she thought. A hooded figure. “No,” she murmured. There was no one there.

Then she was wide-awake, pulling herself to her feet, righting the candle she’d knocked over and using one end of a linen runner with silk fringes to beat sizzling threads cold. Immediately she ran to the sacristy and poured water over her hands and into the sink there. She held them under the cold water and realized she had been lucky to sustain little injury. No one need find out what had happened.

The pain ebbed. She found a first-aid kit and wound a bandage around her left hand to keep the air from hurting the wound. Returning to the chapel, she took the runner from the top of the altar and used it to clean black residue from the marble.

She would pay for another runner to be made.

“Don’t jump,” a man said behind her.

Annie screamed. She screamed and shook her head, and staggered backward against him. Sweat stuck her clothes to her body. That woman she had seen in the nightmares was her, Annie. Premonitions, not nightmares. They were coming true. The gagging sounds she heard were her own.

“Annie, it’s me, Father Cyrus. People are lookin’ for you.”

Chapter Two

Hi, Max,

It’s been a long time. Forgive me for not writing sooner.

Have you picked your next victim yet?

How was London? Clever of you to go there. Far enough away for you to get lost in another closed-ranks medical fraternity, but not so far you couldn’t keep an eye on things here. I expect you were surprised how quickly the media in the States forgot about you and your nasty little habit. I wasn’t surprised.

The media is fickle, with short attention spans, but that means they’re always on the hunt for the next story, or the next installment of an old, sick story like yours.

Did you lose a close friend in London? You know the kind of friend I mean. A woman. If you did, you hid the evidence well. We didn’t hear a thing about it.

There are a few questions I want you to think about and maybe you’ll tell me the answers one day. Do you disfigure them so badly because you enjoy knowing that you are one of the few who could put some of their bones and flesh back together again, if you wanted to? Does the thought turn you on?

Do you tell them what they’ll look like afterwards and remind them that you know how to mend wounds like that—then laugh when you say you don’t heal dead women?

You’re back. That’s too bad, but we’ll make the best of it. You’ve chosen a quaint place to hide—conveniently out of touch, too, but that doesn’t mean a few words here and there won’t have the whole town watching you. If you stray, even sleepy Toussaint will notice the attention you get.

Be very, very careful who you associate with, Doctor. Stay away from whores. You know how quickly your history can jump into the public eye from every media outlet across the country—the way it did before. They loved crucifying you then and they’ll love it even more the next time—if there is a next time. But that’s up to you. Try to control yourself, and keep your nose clean.

Remember how charges in the first death, poor Isabel’s, were dismissed for lack of evidence? And the second one went the same way? Carol was so sexy.

How did you wait all those years before you killed the second time? Or did you wait? Did other women die in between without any connection being made to you?

The third time (that they find out about) won’t be a charm for you.

I don’t know why I waste my time trying to help you. Once a killer, always a killer. You’ll do it again and probably soon—unless I find a way to stop you.

Why not show my letter to someone who can help you? Not your brother, Roche. It might seem convenient to use a shrink in the family but he would only say whatever you wanted to hear. Kelly would worry about himself first, then panic. He would sacrifice you to save his own skin. Best keep this away from him, too.

Go to the law. Tell the truth and show them this. Say it’s a letter from the best friend you ever had, the only honest friend you ever had, and ask them to lock you away before you do something unspeakable again.

God help you, and them.

I don’t sign my letters to him. Why should I? He’d know I was only trying to be clever.

By now he’ll feel safe, as if he’s finally outrun me and his past, but he never will.

Chapter Three

“The reconstruction should have been finished months ago,” Kelly Savage said. “Before we had to worry about the weather.” He gestured to the restaurant windows with his sandwich.

A gray-green sky rested on treetops outside Pappy’s Dance Hall and Eats where Kelly had insisted he and his brothers meet for lunch. Max had known better than to raise curiosity by suggesting they go somewhere else, even if he did have good reasons to keep the place to himself.

Max saw his twin, Roche, skirting a giant, blue-varnished alligator inside the front doors and raised a hand. A jukebox interested Roche more than his brothers did. He leaned on the neon-flashing machine and fished in his pocket for coins.

Kelly craned around to see and shook his head. “I don’t know where that boy came from but it surely wasn’t the same set of eggs as you and me.”

“Speak for yourself,” Max said and laughed. Kelly was their half brother, their father’s son by a short first marriage, but most of the time they all forgot that.

Max had called ahead to warn Annie Duhon he’d be arriving with an entourage—they had both decided they wanted to keep their friendship fairly private, at least for now—but Annie hadn’t been in when he’d called and she still hadn’t shown up. He wished he had the right to find out why because during the past seven months he had never visited Pappy’s without finding Annie there.

He knew why he preferred not to advertise their connection. What was her reason? She’d never said, but neither had he.

Kelly clapped his hands over his ears and he was not the only one who did. “Jailhouse Rock,” as only Elvis could sing it, blared through the speakers from the jukebox, cutting off Jellyroll Morton on the sound system.

Max smiled at his diminishing pile of softshell crabs. Folks called Roche “oblivious” and Max guessed they were right, but he liked him the way he was.

“Dammit, he can make me mad,” Kelly said. “Listen to that racket. Who’s the Elvis look-alike over there?” He shifted to see better. “Black wig and a white suit. And damn me if he isn’t wearing blue suede shoes. This place got stuck in a decade I don’t remember. Kitschy doesn’t come close.”

“Loosen up,” Max said, losing patience. “I was told about him. Name’s Carmen. Apparently he’s worked here for years and he’s part of the atmosphere, I guess. He’s around in case someone forgets their manners. When Roche gets over here we’ll listen to whatever’s on your mind and get out. We could have talked at the clinic anyway.” He glanced toward Annie’s office again. The door was still closed. She loved this place and treated it with the kind of care she’d use if it belonged to her. He had seen her yesterday. If she intended to be out today she would have said so.

“The clinic ought to be finished,” Kelly said. “Aren’t you worried about your arteries with all the fried food?” He eyed Max’s crabs and took another bite out of his own toasted cheese sandwich. His basic tastes in food hadn’t progressed much since grade school.

“Sure I’m worried. Don’t you think that lump of yellow goop you’re eating could be a problem, too?”

Max was used to watching his own double walk around. Finally heading in their direction, Roche loped, tall, looselimbed and relaxed, his short black hair mussed. Crossing the dance floor in the middle of the low-lying building, he returned nods from folks he knew only by sight. He rarely smiled because it slipped his memory, but people felt drawn to him anyway.

He sat beside Kelly, opposite Max. “Did you take a look at that jukebox. Wurlitzer ‘1015.’ How do they keep the thing running?”

“Probably a new knockoff,” Kelly said.

Roche swivelled and hooked a thumb in the direction of the machine. “Uh-uh. Take a closer look. They first made those in the forties. There’s nothing new in this place. Anyway, sorry I’m late,” he finished absently.

“You were late before you got here,” Kelly said in a monotone. Max didn’t like the way Kelly looked. It wasn’t like him to be pale under his tan or to have dark marks under his usually clear, hazel eyes.

“I stopped in at Rosebank for the mail,” Roche said. “Nothing but bills.”

All three of them had small apartments at Rosebank, a resort that belonged to Spike Devol, the local sheriff, his wife Vivian and her mother, Charlotte. Green Veil, an antebellum house next door to the resort was the site of the new clinic. Already converted into a plastic surgery clinic a few years earlier, Max had decided that, with work, the place was exactly what he wanted. The work had turned out to be a lot more extensive than he had figured, but despite Kelly’s panicking, Max expected the place to open within months. It had to. Already there were doctors with different plastic specialties from Max’s who had committed to coming on board at Green Veil.

Roche looked around for a waitress. “I ran into Father Cyrus at Rosebank. He and Vivian closeted themselves away and didn’t look so happy.”

“Wonder what that was about?” Kelly said. “Those two don’t go in for closed-door meetings, do they?”

Roche shrugged and asked a waitress in squeaky-bottomed shoes for the same thing Max had ordered. “This is a great place,” he said, hanging his head back to look at a thick layer of mostly yellowing business cards tacked to the ceiling. “It’s got character, atmosphere. I’d like to come when the band plays. Did you see the size of the gator out front? Blue.” The restaurant surrounded a dance hall and the section where the Savages sat was built off one side of the building.

“Blue what?” Kelly said, after considering. “The shoes? Yeah, fucking idiot Elvis impersonator. Jeez.”

“He was talking about the alligator,” Max said. “It’s called Blue. I told you that when we got here.”

“Yeah,” Roche said to Kelly, his tone light and even. “And I’m humoring you, friend. Otherwise I’d tell you to go to hell and take your third-degree with you.”

Time to change the subject. “Wasn’t it great to see Michele Riley yesterday? I knew she’d come for an interview just to be polite, but I wasn’t sure she’d accept the job.”

Roche said, “I was,” and looked too pleased.

“Because she can’t resist your charms?” Max asked. “I don’t think you had much to do with it. She likes the idea of having her own physical therapy department even if it will be small. And she’s damned good, so all the luck is on our side. I’m relieved she wants to come here—there’s nothing much she doesn’t know about me.”

“Oh, yeah?” Roche crossed his arms.

“You know what I mean.”

Roche looked into the distance. “It’s a good sign she’s so positive. She’ll bring others with her—including the fiancé she ought to dump in favor of me. She seems to really like it here.” He and Max had known Michele professionally. At their invitation she had come to Toussaint the day before, expressed delight over the clinic and agreed to coordinate the physical therapy department. Her fiancé was a nurse.

“Just remember Michele’s taken,” Max said to Roche and smiled. “It’s beginning to feel as if we should have done something like this a long time ago,” he observed. “This will be a good place for patients to recuperate.”

“Fucking weather,” Kelly muttered as if he hadn’t heard a word either Roche or Max said. He gulped beer from a sweating glass. “You know you can’t hide forever, don’t you, Max.”

“If I didn’t, I do now,” Max said. “Where did that come from?” He could always rely on their older brother to state the obvious.

“Someone has to remind you what we’re facing. You get off in your own world and forget—”

“Keep it down,” Roche said through his teeth. “We’ve been here a long time now without any problems.”

“You and Roche have been here a fair amount of time,” Kelly said. “Making sure you two can do what you want to do keeps me pretty busy elsewhere.”

“Can it,” Max said. “You don’t have to spend so much time in New York and you wouldn’t if you didn’t like it there. We all like it there, remember? It’s home, or it was. You’re in a rotten mood and it isn’t helping a thing. So we’re gonna get more rain, big deal, it rains plenty here and work doesn’t stop.”

“Delays cost us,” Kelly said. He finished the sandwich rapidly and wiped his mouth on a paper napkin. “You know how hard it is to keep a work crew focused. If the weather gets bad they find inside jobs, and they come back when they damn well please.”

“Dammit,” Max said. He noticed that noise had dwindled at nearby tables and saw patrons lose interest in their own conversations while they listened to the brothers argue. He dropped his voice. “What’s up with you, Kelly? You get jumpier by the day. If you want out of this project, say so. I never imagined we’d have to resort to hiding away to do our work but it’s the best we’ve got—or I’ve got. You two don’t have to be here.”

Roche rolled his eyes and kept quiet.

“You can be an ungrateful son of a bitch,” Kelly said.

“So you say. You push me too far. We’re finally within shouting distance of opening the clinic’s doors and you’re looking for more problems.”

Roche half turned away and pulled an ankle onto the opposite knee. Roche the quiet peacemaker with a steely will said less than he thought, much less. Max was the one man who read his twin regardless of the man’s enigmatic demeanor. Neither of them went in for idle talk.

“Well, hell, it is starting to rain,” Kelly said, looking up at the first big drops on a skylight. He dropped his voice. “I get edgy is all. You’re right, I look for problems. I’ll try to knock it off.”

“Forget it,” Max said. “We’re going to be looking over our shoulders for a bit. We’ll learn to forget about it in time.” He did not say they’d be looking for unnatural deaths that might be blamed on Max the way two others, fifteen years apart, the second one three years ago, initially had been. He also didn’t mention that he hesitated to give the impression that he cared about any woman in more than an offhand way because knowing him well might be dangerous to a lady’s health. Kelly and Roche thought Annie Duhon was just a nodding acquaintance.

“Okay,” Roche said, easing a baseball cap out of his back pocket and tossing it on the table. “Is that it, Kelly? You’re edgy and you wanted us all here so you could talk about it.”

“For a shrink, you have a lousy bedside manner,” Kelly said, jutting his square jaw. “I already said I was uptight, but that isn’t why we’re here. I wanted to go somewhere we could talk without being overheard by the Devols, or those sorry-ass construction workers.”

“Really?” Roche looked at the nearest table where four men instantly got real interested in their food. “So talk. Quietly. And the contractors are doing a great job. Looks like they’ll finish almost on time and that doesn’t happen so often.”

Kelly put his elbows on the table and rested his face in his hands. “I’m not sure about this place anymore, that’s all.”

Roche and Max looked at one another quickly, and Roche shook his head slightly.

Sure, Max thought, as usual they were supposed to consider Kelly’s unpredictable moods and give him space. “What d’you mean?” he asked, unable to resist. “If you’re saying we’re making a mistake opening Green Veil, I wish you’d said something a year or more ago.”

“You were so set on it,” Kelly said, his face still in his hands. “Your buddy, Reb Girard, told you this was a good place to get lost and you believed her. I don’t know what I think about it now.”

“I still believe her,” Max said, getting heated.

Roche’s crabs arrived, sizzling on the plate. He thanked the waitress who gazed into his very blue eyes for a bit too long, then glanced at Kelly before she scuttled away.

“Reb’s dad was the town doc around here and she’s the second generation taking care of the folks. She ought to know if it’s a backwater. Half her bills, or more, get paid in chickens and eggs—a ham if she’s lucky.”

“My heart bleeds for Dr. Reb Girard,” Kelly said, running his fingers lower on his face until his eyes appeared. “She and that architect husband of hers are rolling in it. He owns most of the town.”

“So what?” When Kelly went into one of these phases they never got anywhere. “I’ve got to go.”

“Wait,” Kelly said, slapping the table. “I’m telling you I think we should consider selling and getting out while we still can. Someone’s going to figure out who you are. I feel it coming. That cousin of your friend, Reb, is always looking for dirt to put in that miserable little newspaper of hers. I’d say you’d give her enough to last a long time.”

The cousin was Lee O’Brien and she lived out at Cloud’s End, the Girard estate, while she ran the Toussaint Trumpet, the town’s one paper.

“You don’t know half of what’s gone on in this quiet backwater, do you?” Kelly said.

Max figured he knew about everything that was worth knowing, and some of it he didn’t like, but that didn’t change Toussaint into a metropolis. “They’ve had their share of bad luck—of the criminal kind—but it’s over now. Finally. Sooner or later my history will come out. I’m betting everything on having some champions who will speak up, and on winning over the folks who live here. So far, I’m doing okay.”

“Yes,” Roche said. “I think you really like it here, and I sure do. What have you got against the place, Kelly?”

That bought him an unblinking stare. “I love it. Especially when I feel like seeing a first-run play.”

Max laughed. “If you knew how you sound, you’d change the subject. You can get to a play anytime you want to, or whatever—or whomever—you have an itch to see in a hurry. You don’t have to be here at all if you don’t want to be.”

“So you don’t want to reconsider?” Kelly asked.

“No.”

“Neither do I,” Roche said.

A smile, all unaffected charm and guaranteed to disarm, transformed Kelly. He laughed and flipped back overlong, dishwater blond hair. “Just checking.”

Roche was first out of his seat and shaking Kelly by the shoulder. “Rat. You don’t change. Outside. I want to beat the crap out of you.”

Reason stopped Max just in time and he sank back into his seat, but he chuckled watching the other two wrapped in a mock-ferocious embrace. “Nice language from the gentleman shrink,” he said. “You’ve been listening to our clown act here for too long. That wasn’t funny, Kelly, but you always did have a cruel sense of humor.”

“Just wanted to get us together for once,” Kelly said, punching Roche good-naturedly. “I’m relieved to hear you say you’re not wearing rose glasses, though, Max. Hell, I worry about you and so does Roche, you know that. You got a rotten deal and we don’t want to see it happen again just when you think you’re safe.”

Max’s stomach revolved but he kept the corners of his mouth turned up. “My eyes are open,” he said. He never intended to share some of the thoughts that went through his mind. Green Veil would work. He and Roche made a great team and together with a hand-picked staff they were going back to what they loved. Kelly’s financial skills made everything easier and maybe it was a good idea to have him keeping everyone’s feet on the ground.

Pappy’s was busier than usual today, not that it was ever too quiet. Every few moments the front door opened to admit more customers. Then it opened and Annie came in. Carmen went to her at once and they shared a few words before she went directly into her office and shut the door.

Max tensed. She hadn’t looked to see if he was there, but she probably assumed he’d be gone by now. He would hang around until his brothers drove away, then come back and talk to her. The tension in his shoulders relaxed. There was nothing to worry about.

Not far from where Max sat, someone watched his reaction to Annie Duhon. Pleasure, the watcher thought, the good doctor felt real good at the sight of her. He wanted her—it showed in his face. How convenient.

Chapter Four

Gator Hibbs and his wife, Doll, proprietors of Toussaint’s one hotel, the Majestic, arrived at the table. He shifted his round body uncertainly and took off a battered, sweatstained Achafalaya Gold Casino baseball cap, revealing his sweating bald head. Doll stood behind him as if she were shy, which was anything but the truth from Max’s dealings with her. Nondescript, with fine brown hair held by a rubber band at the back of her head, Doll’s eyes were her one notable feature. They were incongruous. Light gray and wide, as if in perpetual surprise, they didn’t reflect a thing about Doll’s acerbic personality.

“Hi, Gator, Doll,” Max said.

“Nice day,” Gator said, fastening his attention on the rain-splattered windows. “I like this kinda day.” He winced and jerked—and Max figured Doll had elbowed her husband.

“Y’didn’t have to do that,” Gator said, turning his back on Max. “What d’you do that for? Pokin’ me in the kidney like that. Me, I already got water troubles—you heard Dr. Reb—”

“We come to talk to Dr. Savage,” Doll said, her eyes still wide open and blank. “He’s not interested in your waterworks, Gator. I hear tell he does the faces and stuff.”

Max raised his eyebrows at Kelly and Roche and stood up. He tapped Gator’s shoulder. “Let’s find somewhere quieter.”

“We can say what we got to say here,” Doll said. “Ain’t nuthin’ private.”

“The hell it ain’t,” Gator said, and turned red. “Thanks, Doc. Appreciate your understandin’.”

They moved outside under the covered entry. Gator shoved his hands in the pockets of his washed-out overalls and spread his feet to brace his weight. Doll stared at him.

“Relax,” Max said. “Just tell me what’s on your mind.”

“We’re real fair folks,” Gator said after a pause. “Give anybody anythin’, we would. Ain’t that right, Doll?”

“Right.”

“You can ask anyone in this town and they’ll tell you how the Hibbses is generous.”

Max smiled. He felt sorry for the man. “You’re uncomfortable with whatever you need to tell me. You can’t say anything I haven’t heard before, so why not get it over with?”

Gator took a deep breath and gave a bronchitic cough. “It’s the damp,” he said, indicating the rain beating into a layer of fog resembling ice vapor. “You did say your Miz Riley was only stayin’ one night?”

“Yes.”

“And she was goin’ to pay when she left this mornin’?”

“She didn’t pay,” Doll said rapidly. “And extra days is extra pay. She’s takin’ up a room even if she ain’t sleepin’ in it.”

These two didn’t amuse Max anymore. “When I made the booking, I told you to send the bill to me.”

“You said it would be one night but check-out’s at eleven. We’re owed for two nights now—as long as she’s gone by tomorrow mornin’.”

His throat tightened. “Miss Riley is still here?”

Doll actually smirked. “Why don’t you tell us? What you do in private is your business, except if you try using us as a cover. Don’t make no difference to us if she’s stayin’ with you, now. But it makes more sense for her to get the rest of her things, don’t it?”

Max couldn’t draw a full breath. “I drove her back to the hotel last night.” He didn’t want to think what he was thinking. “I saw her go inside. Perhaps she just forgot one of her bags. I’ll arrange to get it sent on.” He retrieved his wallet from a back pocket and pulled out some bills.

Doll looked uncertain. “She didn’t clear any of her stuff out of the bathroom. And her rental car’s still parked out back of the hotel.”

Chapter Five

Annie would know those shoulders and that back anywhere. Looking at Max Savage from any direction was more than a pleasure, except when she didn’t want to talk to anyone, even him.

The doors to Pappy’s swung shut behind her. Annie hovered, the hood of her jacket pulled well down against the rain, and considered backtracking. She still had a chance to get inside without being seen.

With a cell phone clamped to his ear, Max turned and saw her. He must see her. That or he was looking right through her with an expression on his face that turned him into a stranger. Intense agitation—and anger—distorted his features. Annie breathed great gulps of air through her mouth. She half raised her hand to wave, but let it fall again. The intense, blue-eyed man who caught the attention of many women and left them trying to decide if they had seen him on the cover of GQ, had stepped out in a frightening disguise today. With a vague smile about her lips, Annie walked on and made to pass him.

Fortunately, since he was on the phone she didn’t need to speak. And she wasn’t sure she could.

Before she managed to escape toward the parking lot, Max caught her by the arm and smiled, with his mouth, not with his eyes. Some emotion made his eyes darker. He averted the phone mouthpiece and said, “Please give me a moment, Annie.” The downpour had turned the shoulders of his denim jacket dark. Rain plastered his black hair to his head and ran down his face.

She nodded, but would rather leave without the inevitable questions about why she looked exhausted. When Father Cyrus drove her home early that morning, Joe and Ellie Gable had greeted her, Ellie with Annie’s cat, Irene, clutched in her arms. Irene was queen in Annie’s flat and never stepped outside. But the Gables had been awakened by the cat yowling at their back door.

With an easy excuse that Irene must have slipped, unseen, out of the building when she left, Annie had lied to her friends. But no matter what else was on her mind, she never neglected Irene who had been asleep on the tumbled bed when Annie left.

Someone had got in and let her cat out.

No, this time she had been so agitated that she left a door ajar somewhere. That’s probably what happened.

Twice since the episode at St. Cécil’s she had dozed, only to be jolted by visions from the nightmare. Cyrus had spent a long time with her that morning and inevitably, spurred on by the trust he fostered just by being himself, she had told him what was happening to her.

Cyrus, who had probably never turned anyone away, promised her he would be there for her and that they’d get together again to see how she was doing.

For the first time, the scenes had continued for seconds when she was completely awake. She turned her head from Max and closed her eyes. What did it mean? What was happening to her?

Max’s grip tightened on her arm. “Spike, I don’t think anything has happened to her,” he said into his phone. “Yes, of course it’s possible. Sorry. Michele drove into Toussaint yesterday morning. She rented a car at the airport. I drove her back to the Majestic last night—after dinner—but according to Gator and Doll, she didn’t sleep there. Her things are still in the room and the rental car’s parked in the hotel lot.”

The conversation was not her business but she heard every word loud and clear. Michele would be Michele Riley, the woman Max had mentioned hoping to hire for the new clinic.

“Of course I’m worried,” Max said. “Look, I’m gonna have to come in and have a chat, but not today.”

While he listened to Spike his color deepened. “Kelly’s the detail man,” he said. “He dealt with the employment information we need to have on file for her. He knows what’s happened. I’ll have him call you…okay? We’ll get back to you.”

Slowly, Annie turned her eyes toward Max. While he listened to Sheriff Spike Devol, a pale line formed around his mouth. When he spoke again, even his voice sounded different, with no trace of the warmth she expected.

He shoved the phone onto his belt. “I want to get away from here, now. Annie, I could use your company. Or can’t you do that?”

She paused. A quick explanation that she had to get back to work would set her free. Only she would rather be with him. “I can take a little while.” She wouldn’t pry. If he wanted her to know about his problems, he would let her know.

Max moved quickly, his strides long enough to press Annie into a trot. He aimed his key, and the lights on his gray Boxster blinked. He didn’t slow down until he took a moment to see her inside the car and close the door. Within seconds he got behind the wheel, and sat swiping water from his face. He turned on the engine and drove from the lot, too fast for the slick conditions.

Without looking at her, or saying a word, he grabbed his phone again and pressed a button. “Come on, come on. Kelly? Yeah, hi, it’s Max. Just got off the phone with Spike…No, dammit, I told him what I found out from the Hibbses, nothing else. Get Michele’s information. Home address, contract, whatever you’ve got. Take it to Spike at his office.” He stopped talking and his attention seemed to wander. “Spike can find out if she was on her plane back to New York today. I forgot to ask if he’d already done that.”

He looked at her. She got another mouth-only smile and pushed a fist into her stomach. This was panicking her and she’d already been through enough in the past twenty-four hours.

“Did you sleep last night?” he asked, pressing the mouthpiece against his shoulder. He figured he already knew the answer. Annie looked sick. She blinked rapidly as if her eyes stung.

“Of course I slept,” she said, sounding defensive and not like the Annie he was trying to know.

“Is that why your eyes look like black holes and you’re so stressed you’d probably break if someone touched you. What did you do to yourself?” He had noticed before, but never mentioned several small, silvered areas on both sides of her hands. Old, insignificant burn scars. Severe burns, taking away the disfigurement they caused, were part of his life, but Annie’s weren’t even near his league. However, today she did have a new gauze dressing on the left side.

“I’m fine,” she protested. “Never been better. Mornings aren’t my favorites, that’s all.” She didn’t explain the bandage.

Max didn’t believe her. Absently, he heard Kelly’s muffled, angry voice.

Annie didn’t intend to talk about what had happened at the church. She returned Max’s blue stare. “Do you think I’m lyin’?”

The road curved but he took the bends with absent ease.

Annie felt every turn of the wheel, the frequent corrections the car made, and looked doggedly at her lap.

“Have you finished?” Max said into the phone, repeatedly glancing back at Annie. “Oh, yes you have. No, I’m not telling you the details—let Spike tell you. I can’t face it. Not yet. Hell, I don’t know but it’s all too familiar. I’m going for a drive…Because I need to.”

He turned off the phone—all the way off—and headed north. Annie wanted to know where they were going but didn’t ask.

Yellow and brown leaves fell from deciduous trees. Some caught in the windshield wipers and slapped back and forth. The rising fog layer steamed as if the rain falling from misty skies were boiling. Billowing vapor rolled from the road and coiled away between trees on either side. Patchy visibility cleared for brief moments before disappearing into ghostly clouds that took the car in a suffocating embrace.

If she asked him to slow down, or even to wait for the conditions to improve, would he turn his strange hostile voice on her, and allow his face to look as it had outside Pappy’s?

Max leaned forward slightly. His damp knuckles were white, the tendons on the backs of his hands and wrists, distended.

“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly and glanced at her. He heard himself swallow. “Really sorry, Annie. I don’t know what got into me, bringing you with me like this. I’m not good company.” This was probably the only appealing woman he had known who didn’t feel her own power over a man. Reticence hovered behind her eyes. Yet she was lovely, her shoulder-length hair smooth and fair, her eyes remarkable for their catlike, almost amber color and her mouth soft, full and inviting. And Annie was slim with gentle curves and long legs.

But Annie Duhon, a thoughtful, gentle woman, had a tough side. She ran Pappy’s with an ease he admired and he had witnessed how she used humor to cut through difficult encounters. Max didn’t think he would enjoy being on the wrong end of Annie’s displeasure. He smiled slightly at the thought.

“Me, I kind of like wild days like this,” Annie said, feeling silly but desperate to break the tension. Each time he glanced at her she felt as if he touched her. Her breathing grew shallower, her lungs tight.

“I can tell I’m upsetting you,” he said. “I’ll go back.”

“Don’t,” she said. “You said you needed my company. I’m here for you. If you want to talk, I’m ready to listen.” She had never been able to walk away from someone in need. Sometimes that had been a mistake but it couldn’t be with Max…could it?

“Thanks,” he said and drove on more slowly.

He thumped the steering wheel and Annie jumped. Her hands trembled and she wound them tightly together. If things did get sticky, she would find a way to bail out. She’d learned the hard way about not allowing a man to trap her where she could be overpowered.

Max wasn’t the type to overpower anyone.

She touched his arm. “It’s none of my business, but you’re worried. Is somethin’ wrong with the person you interviewed yesterday? Michele?”

“I don’t know.” He didn’t, and he didn’t want to talk about it—or think about it, for God’s sake.

“Okay.” She wished she hadn’t asked.

“You’re shaking,” he said. “I’ve scared you. Dammit! This isn’t like me. Those bastards are getting what they want, they’re turning me into a madman.”

“Who?” she said automatically.

“Let it go.”

If it might not turn out to be a really bad idea, she would tell him what she thought about being a captive audience for someone in a foul temper.

“Bail,” she said, not meaning to speak aloud. She cleared her throat.

A strong hand settled over both of hers. “There’s no reason for me to bail. I’m going through a rough patch is all. And I’m getting ahead of myself. Do you like bagels?” He continued to hold her hands. “Remember a little restaurant in St. Martinville called Char’s Bagels?”

“No.” She looked around. St. Martinville? The weather, the fog, had disoriented her, if it hadn’t, she’d have asked him to go somewhere other than St. Martinville—anywhere but there. The town where she’d grown up wasn’t so far from Toussaint but she’d left a long time ago and never returned since.

“You’ll love it. Every kind of bagel and every flavor whipped cream cheese you can think of. Smoked salmon. Capers. Paper-thin onions. Great coffee.”

“New York food,” she said faintly.

“People eat bagels all over,” Max said. “Could you go to Char’s with me and eat something now?”

Her life in the town was over. The people she’d known were dead or gone—most of them. Those who remained would never recognize her after so long. Almost everything about her had changed.

She definitely wanted out of this car. “Didn’t you get lunch at Pappy’s?” What did it matter? Once she was out of the car she could take charge of herself. “Well, I’ll come. Why not. I always like pickin’ up fresh ideas.” If she made a big deal out of driving somewhere else, Max could get suspicious.

“I had a good lunch.” He couldn’t read her mood. “But I can’t remember what it was, so I’ll take more time with the bagels.”

This man was in control, always. He had never blabbered about inconsequential things—like bagels. “Lead me to Char’s,” she said.

When he glanced at her again, his eyes were narrowed and she felt him assessing her, her reactions. He suspected she was humoring him. She stared back into his eyes and felt drawn to him, even as she couldn’t put fear completely aside.

In St. Martinville, folks had said she was a bad seed, that she went after the kind of excitement that could ruin her. She had heard whisperings: “Disgustin”’ “Stay away from her and make sure your George does. She’s ruined more than one decent man.” They had no proof because there was none, but they linked her to men she’d never met and she had no defense because she had made two mistakes that turned out badly enough to trash her reputation.

Max drove into St. Martinville. The rain had cleared the streets of people on foot.

“You know your way around this town,” she said and her voice felt unused. Annie kept her face straight ahead and wished she could put her hood up again and hide inside.

“Blink and you’d miss the place,” Max said. “What’s to know? It’s a pretty town, friendly.”

She shrugged. The fog over the road had dissipated as soon as they entered the town, but the rain beat down here just as heavily as it had in Toussaint.

That’s where she should be, in Toussaint, at Pappy’s doing her job. This was out of character for her and it mustn’t happen again. “Where is this Char’s?” She didn’t recall the place.

“Close to St. Martin de Tours Church. And there’s the church now.”

The white, single-story church boasted a bell tower over the front door. A few people formed a line out front to file up steps and into the building. Visitors liked to tour the building, and a wet day was a good time to be inside. When she’d been a little girl, Annie used to creep into the Perpetual Adoration Garden. She liked to sit and stare at the statue of Evangeline, the Acadian heroine. Peace waited there, and although Annie had never told anyone, she had secretly thought Evangeline watched over children—and fairies. She bit her lip. She had been certain fairies flitted about among the flowers because she’d seen them, and since she would never share that secret, no one would argue the point.

A right turn on Hamilton and they traveled a couple of blocks. Annie’s stomach hit her diaphragm. Not much had really changed and she didn’t want to be there. Abruptly, Max turned in at a narrow alley she didn’t recall and made a quick right into a forecourt large enough for half a dozen cars. One open space remained and the Boxster slid in tidily.

A single window on the left side of a boxy little building gave a clouded impression of rapidly moving figures inside. The door, with an oval of glass at its center, stood to the right. Whoever painted “Char’s Bagels” over the window wouldn’t be making a living in signs. Each turquoise letter was of a different size from its partners. And the closer the offender got to the end of the two words, the smaller his or her efforts became. Apparently he had eventually noticed his mistakes and attempted to fill up ragged spaces with yellow-brown pocked circles with holes in the middle. Those would be bagels, Annie decided.

Max switched off his engine but didn’t attempt to get out of the car. He turned her heart, and caused an ache in some places she shouldn’t allow to react at all. An incredibly good-looking man with a square jaw, a dip in the center of his chin and a wide, firm mouth that turned up at the corners, he was tall, with a muscular body—and if he knew how much time she spent fantasizing about him, he would probably laugh, or pity her.

He got out but she couldn’t make herself move. Max opened her door and offered her his hand.

Reluctantly, she joined him. He looked steadily down at her, his black brows drawn together. “What’s wrong? There is something, isn’t there.”

One of the blushes that cursed her life blossomed on Annie’s face. “Nothin’ wrong.”

He eased her away from the door and shut it. Once again they were pounded with rain and he swiped a hand across spiky eyelashes. “Yes, there is. What happened this morning? Why weren’t you at Pappy’s? You don’t miss work.” He’d done everything wrong with her so far today. The clock needed to be turned back. No hope there.

“Whoa, boy,” she said. “I don’t have to explain my actions to you.” Adrenaline started to rush and gave her some strength, together with a whole heap of nervous jumpiness.

Someone needed to get them out of this tight corner and it should be him. “You’re right. This is my fault. I got a bad shock this morning and when I saw you, it was like reaching someone sensible and sane who made me feel…calmer, I guess. I wanted to stay close to you.”

“I guess we both had rotten mornings.” Yet again, she said something she should have kept to herself. “Happens that way sometimes. Irene got out and had to be chased down.” She hated lying and lies were coming too easily lately.

“Your cat? You found it?”

“Her, yes,” she said and looked around the area. She had been down here at some time but the bagel shop had to be relatively new. Petals from magnolia blooms rolled over the forecourt. She could smell their sweet, musky scent.

Two laughing women spilled from a beauty shop on the corner and Annie spun away in case they looked in her direction. She put a hand to her throat and tapped the toes of her damp pumps. If they did see her, they’d only get a view of her back and never guess who she was, not that she recognized them.

If he had made her this edgy, Max thought, then he hated himself. “Come on. We’ll get some hot coffee and warm up a bit. Then I’ll drop you at your place so you can change. I’ll hang and get you back to work.”

He realized she was looking at something behind him and it didn’t make her happy. He resisted the urge to find out what had caught her attention. Annie didn’t seem to want to be here. And he didn’t want to be in Toussaint now, but he had no right to pull her into his problems.

He put a hand on her shoulder and found it rigid. “You coming?”

Her lips parted and her eyes filled with tears. Tears? Hell, what had he done to her? When he looked over his shoulder he saw nothing but a man leaving the shop with a bulging white paper bag.

“Annie?”

If she could close her eyes and be miles away, she would. “No! No, I can’t stay today. You go on in. I know how to get back to Pappy’s on my own.” As soon as she got away from this parking lot she’d call Carmen to come and get her. He didn’t ask questions and he didn’t discuss people’s business.

Max didn’t move.

“Really,” she told him. “I’ll see you back there—maybe tomorrow if you’re in.”

He reached for her right hand, turned it palm up, dropped his car keys there and folded her fingers over them. “Take my car. I’ve got a few things I should do while I’m here. Roche will be along and I’ll go back with him. Just leave the car at Pappy’s.” Meanwhile he’d get his act together and make sure he never made another stupid slip like this one. But then he intended to find out why Annie was nervous in this town. More than nervous, just about paralyzed. “Off you go.”

“No. That’s not necessary,” Annie said. She tried to push the keys at him but he stepped away. He blinked and worked his jaw, said, “Just take the car. I’ve got to go now.” He walked from the lot and turned toward Bayou Teche.

Confused, her skin damp and clammy, Annie watched him move rapidly out of sight. She looked at the keys, then at the Boxster. Of course she couldn’t take his car and leave him here. But the man with the white bag had stopped outside the bagel shop door and she felt him staring at her.

Max wouldn’t have gone so far. She’d go after him now and give back the keys.

Only her feet wouldn’t move. She pulled up her hood and bowed her head, moved close to the car.

It was Bobby Colbert who stood, looking directly at her.

How old was he now? A couple of years older than her, thirty-one maybe? Move. Get out of here.

Annie pivoted from the vehicle. No one would think anything of someone who took off running in this kind of weather.

“Annie? Is that you?”

She froze. He might as well have taken her by the throat and squeezed. Annie didn’t react.

The sound of his footsteps, coming in her direction, horrified her. He’s not bad. He was just a boy back then. We were both kids. And the last time I met him he was trying to help me—he did help me. I would probably have died if he hadn’t showed up. But he saw what that crazy man did to me. Bobby knows all about what I have to hide…No one else could know. She couldn’t bear it if…If Max found out, she would leave Toussaint rather than put up with either his revulsion, or his pity.

“Annie, it’s me, Bobby. I didn’t know you were back.”

She raised her face as he reached her. Not a boy anymore. Slim as he had been, but with the mature development of the man he had become. Sandy hair, curly and well cut. Earnest brown eyes. Even, white teeth. The all-American kid had grown up and his open face only intensified her shock and fear at seeing him.

“I’m not back,” she said and shuddered at the thin, wobbly sound of her voice.

Bobby smiled. “I think about you a lot, cher. How you doin’? How did it all…?” He glanced downward over her body.

Annie unlocked the Boxster, dropped inside and locked the door. Not until she saw him jump away did she register that when she shot backward, she almost hit Bobby Colbert.

He could destroy everything she had worked for.

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