Hall, Jessica Read online

  You don't put your hands on a woman in anger, Billy, Caine had told him, over and over. You're a man. You're strong. They're weak.

  "I had to do it." Billy Tibbideau paced a circle around the unconscious woman and the dead man. "She ain't got no business comin' here, snoopin' around."

  Damn women are God's curse on men. That was what his daddy always said. When he was a boy, his father had about killed himself trying to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, but had his mother ever appreciated it? Had she ever let the man have a moment of peace? No, sir, she'd harp on him from the minute he stepped foot in the house, whining about his drinking or money or Billy, until his daddy had to give her the back of his hand, just to shut her up.

  William Tibbideau Sr. said that was all women were good for anyway—walloping or screwing—and you had to give them plenty of both to keep them in line. Caine might not wallop them, but he screwed plenty.

  The tightness in Billy's chest made him want to kick the woman, but he crouched down to look at her face, and saw it clearly for the first time. "Aw, shit."

  It was her—Isabel, Remy Duchesne's girl, the one who'd stirred up half the bayou with her do-gooder nonsense. Remy should have beaten some sense into her years ago, but the old man never had been able to control his women.

  You don't hit women, Caine's voice echoed inside Billy's skull.

  Had she seen his face? Had she recognized him?

  Billy tossed aside the culling pole he'd used to knock her out and went to the window to look down into the back alley. No one in sight, but he'd have to get a move on if he was going to finish the job. Not that he had to—he could wash his hands of this and walk away. But that wouldn't get him the rest of his money.

  He'd earned that money and then some.

  The pint of Jack he kept in his back pocket was half empty; he drained the rest before wiping his mouth on his sleeve. The bad feelings receded an inch or two. First place he was stopping on the way home was a liquor store, get him a couple of fifths. His wife wouldn't like that, but unlike his mother, Cecilia knew better than to open her mouth to him when he was in a mood.

  "Nothin' to it. Torch the place, Billy, that's all." He grabbed the box of bottles he'd brought and carried it to the stairs. "That's all, my ass."

  The bodies changed things—they'd have to burn along with the building. He wasn't taking a murder rap just because Remy's girl didn't have the sense to keep her nose out of other people's business. He used his lighter to ignite the strip of rag stuffed in the top of three bottles and then threw them into the corners of the loft. The rags ignited the gasoline inside the bottles as soon as they shattered.

  Gotta hurry. He hauled the box downstairs and slipped out into the alley, then tossed the remaining bottles through the windows before he looked up to see how the second floor was burning.

  He saw bloody fingers appear in a gap between the boards over the windows. They clenched the edge, straining at it.

  She was alive. She was trying to get out.

  "Playing possum on me, sneaky little bitch." Billy ran around the side, checking the street from the corner before he slipped out to the front of the warehouse. She wouldn't be able to get out the windows, but if she got down the stairs—

  Isabel knew Caine. She'd tell Caine.

  His hands shook as he frantically searched his pockets, then found the key he'd been given. He shoved it into the lock and turned it, but he used too much force and the key snapped in half. "Goddamn." He tried to pull out the broken bit, but it was jammed, along with the lock.

  Dumb-ass firemen wouldn't notice it, Billy decided. Heat and smoke were pouring out of the first-floor windows; in a few minutes the whole place would go up. The important thing was, Isabel wouldn't be walking out of there alive. She wouldn't go tattling to Caine on him.

  He could almost feel his daddy's big hand clap him on the shoulder. One less whining bitch in the world—you done good, son.

  Watching the fire and imagining the woman inside burning made the last of the bad feelings go away. He had a whomping hard-on for some reason, though. That was fine with him; he'd nail Cecilia as soon as he got home. The distant sound of an approaching siren made him dart back around the building and trot down to where he'd parked his truck.

  Billy climbed in and started the engine, and rubbed his palm against his crotch. His dick was so hard he might not be able to wait until he got home. He'd just drive down a ways from the building, park, and watch it burn.

  Just to be sure.

  "Mind telling me why we're responding to a ten-twenty-six?"

  J. D. Gamble glanced sideways at his partner, Therese Vincent. "The warehouse belongs to Marc LeClare."

  "Ah." Terri watched a mother pushing twins in a double stroller cross at the light in front of them. "Cort busy again?"

  J. D. nodded. "Fire safety conference in Biloxi."

  "He call?"

  The light turned green, and he cruised through the intersection. "Yeah."

  "So Cort sends us to do his job, as a favor to your dad's college buddy." She shook her head. "That makes perfect sense. Should we stop by the firehouse and fill out his reports for him afterwards?"

  "Cort types better than you."

  "Monkeys type better than me." J. D.'s partner studied her painfully short fingernails. She kept them that way to avoid biting them. "J. D., have I mentioned lately that your brother is an asshole?"

  His mouth hitched. "Several times."

  Although it was only eight a.m., and most of the shops remained closed, a few hard-core early birds had already hit the street. As he turned on to Bienville Street, J. D. spotted a couple wearing feathered masks, drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups as they peered through the lacy wrought iron grille guarding an antique store's display windows. Even if the biggest party on the planet weren't in progress, no one would have given the masked tourists a second look. Mardi Gras was a year-round business in the Vieux Carre.

  Terri took out a cigarette, but opened the window halfway before she lit it. One of the tourist shops was already playing zydeco, and the zippy little riffs echoed on the nearly empty street. "Your folks throwing the usual soiree next weekend?"

  The annual Noir et Blanc Gala, held at his parents' Garden District mansion on the weekend after Mardi Gras started, was as legendary as his father's restaurant. Though tourists flocked daily to the Krewe of Louis to order from the all-French menus, the family party was restricted to five hundred of the most prominent members of New Orleans's first families. Dress was strictly regulated to two colors—black and white—and many of his mother's friends flew to Paris each year to find new styles to wear and wow the society reporters.

  "Yeah. Evan and his wife are flying in from Montana on Friday." He eyed his partner. "My mother did send you an invitation, didn't she?"

  "Why, no. My goodness." Terri pressed a hand to her cheek. "It must have gotten lost in the mail."

  He knew what Elizabet would do if he asked her about it—flutter her hands and blame one of the maids. "I'm inviting you. Come on by so you can meet Evan's wife, Wendy. You'll like her."

  "No, thanks." She ran a hand over her short brown hair, then tugged at her charcoal gray jacket. "My wardrobe simply isn't up to one of your mama's parties."

  "Doesn't matter."

  "Au contraire, my friend. When you're the only woman wearing permanent press in a room full of white designer silk gowns, it absolutely does matter." The smell of burning wood wafted into the car, and Terri squinted through the windshield at the black smoke still rising in a voluminous column into the sky. "There it is."

  After negotiating his way through the police barricades, J. D. parked out of the way, a block behind the pumper truck. Hashing red, blue, and white lights lit the hazy air like dance club strobes. Heat rolled out through the smoke in transparent waves, driving back anyone who strayed too close. Firefighters held hoses on the smoldering building from all sides, but it was only too obvious that the structure was gutted
. The stench of wet charred wood and the chemical foam they'd sprayed over a burned-out car parked in the alley next to the building added an unpleasant density to the thickened air.

  Terri got out with J. D. and slammed the car door as she surveyed the scene. "I hope that guy has decent insurance," she said, nodding toward the car before scanning the other buildings. "Not a good place for a campfire—the whole block could have gone up."

  J. D. walked up to a patrolman who was busy filling out a field report. The uniform recognized him and lowered his clipboard. "Lieutenant?"

  J. D. scanned the crowd, looking for particularly avid faces. Mostly there were tourists; some were snapping pictures. "Where are you boys at here?"

  "They got the fire mostly out, Lieutenant, but the building's history." The officer grinned. "We got a survivor, though."

  "Lucky bastard." Terri peeled off her jacket and draped it over her arm as she plucked at the front of her blouse a few times. "Must have been a hot one."

  "Old building, lotta wood," the cop told her. "All it takes is a little gasoline, a match, and whomp, you got yourself a barbecue."

  "Officer. Lieutenant." One of the firemen joined them. Water made channels in the black of his soot-streaked gear. "Security guard from down the block claims the place was empty, but we pulled someone out of there. We're going in to have a look around, see if anyone else was caught inside."

  J. D. nodded. "Where's the survivor?"

  "Still at the unit, getting oxygen." The firefighter jerked his chin to the left.

  J. D. saw the fire rescue unit, parked two alleys down. Two men in paramedic jackets were flanking a smaller figure sitting just inside the open back doors. A glimmer of dark red hair made his eyes narrow. "Is that a woman?"

  "Yeah. Real looker, too." The uniform cleared his throat when Terri gave him the eye. "Uh, not a local, according to witnesses. She's not carrying any ID and she's not saying much. Couple of minor head injuries."

  "Nice that you noticed that," Terri drawled. "Her being such a looker and all."

  J. D. didn't laugh. To Terri, he said, "Start canvassing the crowd. I'll talk to the girl."

  She huffed in mock disgust. "You always talk to the girls."

  J. D.'s attention remained fixed on the woman, who had a plastic oxygen mask covering her nose and mouth. Her hair was red. An unusual red, deep and pure, that glowed like old garnets. He'd only known one woman with that particular color hair. Can't be her.

  He stepped over a double length of wide gray fire hose and headed for the unit. As he drew closer, he saw other, disturbing details—the small, slender build, the pale skin, the elegant, long-fingered hands. Even the shreds of ripped stockings still clinging to her legs couldn't disguise their shapely length. Or the two-inch-long scar running down the front of her right leg.

  The memory hit him like an angry fist.

  Are you all right? Seeing her white face, the blood running down her leg. She'd fallen in the cafeteria, right next to his table. Lifting her up. You're bleeding—

  One of the paramedics looked up. "Help you, Lieutenant?"

  "No." When he saw the blood on her clothes, J. D. pulled the mask from the woman's face. And even though he was braced for it, the sight of her face nearly drove him to his knees. "Sable."

  Wide eyes, as dark as café brûlot, stared up at him in shock. She didn't say a word.

  He tossed the mask aside, still not convinced she was real. As he reached for her, she moved her head, just enough to avoid his touch—and the stunned look turned to one of anger and disgust.

  An answering rage welled up inside him, hot and strong enough to make him want to snatch her up in his arms. He forced himself to study her, but he couldn't see where the blood had come from. "What happened to her? Where is she injured?"

  The paramedic retrieved the mask. "She's okay. She just inhaled a little smoke, got some bumps on her head. Probably slipped and fell, trying to get out."

  He wanted to strip her down and check her personally. "And the blood?"

  "The head wounds didn't break the skin; I don't think it's hers."

  J. D. saw fear flicker over her face. "Is she done here?"

  The paramedic checked her lungs with a stethoscope, then nodded. "Yeah, but she needs a follow-up. She might have a concussion."

  "I'll handle it." He took her by the arms, felt her flinch, felt the contraction of the tense muscles beneath her soft skin. What color remained under her skin abruptly went out of her face at that first touch, the same way it had that day at the cafeteria. Her dark eyes remained fixed on his face.

  She's afraid. Why? It wasn't as if he'd never touched her before. He'd touched her plenty. All over. Every inch.

  Before he could haul her to her feet, the patrolman appeared at his side. "Lieutenant, you'd better come over here and have a look at this."

  He let her go. "What?"

  "They just found a body inside." The patrolman handed him a scorched, unfolded wallet in an evidence bag. "ID says Marcus Aurelius LeClare."

  Like any man, Billy preferred screwing to jerking off, but he'd oddly enjoyed sitting in his truck and stroking himself as he'd watched the building burn. No one had paid any mind to him, not even the two curious old folks who had parked their big Lincoln Town Car behind his truck and come out to stand and gawk. They were only three feet away from his window, but for all they cared, he could have been invisible.

  Yet he'd been the one to give them the show. Him, no-account Billy Tibbideau.

  It was a strange thing. Billy liked doing his little side jobs; he'd always been smart enough to get away with them, too. Only this time, knowing Isabel was caught in there and being burned alive, and that he was the one who'd put her there—that made him feel special. Powerful.

  He liked the feeling.

  "That's right, girl," he muttered as he worked his fist. "I got you this time, didn't I?"

  His pleasure didn't last long, though. It dwindled as soon as he saw a firefighter haul Isabel Duchesne out of the burning building. He stopped stroking himself as soon as he saw her emerge, coughing and covered with soot.

  Aw, damn. His erection abruptly wilted in his fist. Why the hell ain't she burned up?

  The old lady standing on the sidewalk turned to stare at him as if she'd heard him.

  He scowled back as he tucked his flaccid penis back in his jeans and yanked up his zipper. "Who you looking at, you nosy old bitch?"

  She opened her mouth to say something, and then her eyes shifted to the other side of his truck. She grabbed her husband's arm and tugged him back toward their car.

  He smirked. "That's right, you better—"

  Something drove Billy's head into the steering wheel, then dragged him across the bench seat and out the passenger door.

  The big dark man slammed him into the cab frame. "This your idea of working?"

  Billy stared up into Caine Gantry's black eyes. His boss was the only man Billy respected—and feared— more than his own daddy.

  "Hey, Caine." He darted a nervous glance at the fire. "I was—I just—"

  Caine turned his head and stared at the blazing building for a long moment. When he looked back at Billy, his expression was ferocious. "You dumb son of a bitch."

  Billy knew he was in for it then, and did the sensible thing: He kneed his boss in the groin.

  Only Caine shifted a moment too soon, and Billy's knee connected with the big man's thigh, which was the same as smacking into a brick wall.

  His boss smiled and stepped back. "Thank you."

  Caine had a reputation for never hitting first, or more than once.

  "It ain't what you're thinking." Billy stumbled back, frantically trying to put space between them. "I didn't do nothing wrong. I'm on the job, Caine, honest."

  The big man came after him. "I'm paying you to sit here and jerk off in front of old ladies?"

  Shame and rage buzzed in Billy's head as he struck again, this time going for Caine's belly and ribs. The big man only pus
hed him back and hit him in the face—once.

  Pain exploded inside Billy's head, while big dark spots danced in front of his eyes.

  A heartbeat later Caine had him pinned against the truck again. He leaned in and sniffed, then shoved a hand into Billy's back pocket and pulled out the empty pint of Jack.

  He looked into Billy's eyes. "I told you what I'd do if I found you drinking again, didn't I?"

  Sweating and shaking, Billy swallowed, and then nodded once. "It won't happen again. I just slipped up, Caine. Just a little bit."

  The bottle went flying and smashed all over the road.

  "Aw, come on." Tears welled into Billy's eyes. "You can't do this to me. We're friends. I got a wife—I need the work."

  Caine reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a wad of cash, which he stuffed in Billy's bleeding mouth. "That's all you're getting outta me." He released him and took a step back. "Hit the road."

  Billy spit the stained bills into his hand and clutched them. "Ain't got to be this way, Caine. You and me, we can work this out. Things'll be better—"

  The big Cajun grabbed him by the hair and rammed his head into the cab frame, then let him drop to the ground. "We're done. Hit the road."

  This isn't happening.

  As Sable sat in the back of the unmarked police car, she tried to sort out what had happened. Marc was dead, and she had nearly died herself. Someone had knocked her out and then had set fire to the warehouse.

  To cover up the murder.

  Why would someone want Marc dead? Was it because of his campaign? Was this some kind of assassination? She'd researched him before they'd met, and she knew how popular he was—he'd been favored to win the election easily, and even the press liked him.

  The press.

  They'd be here soon. They'd want to know what had happened, and she was the only witness. No one knew who she was. To the rest of the world she was nothing, nobody, a charity worker from Shreveport with a project no one had cared about.