20
BEHIND the magnificent
mansion that had been built as an obvious showpiece, the crumbling remains of a
longforgotten plantation home lay partially buried by the creeping
vines and heavy brush of the swamp. Charisse’s laboratory had been
constructed in part of the foundation of the original plantation
house. Most of the earlier structure was crumbling and eaten away
by worms or rotted by the dirt and vines of the swamp as it
reclaimed its land.
Charisse used
sections of the older house to connect between the greenhouse and
her laboratory. Their contractor had preserved one long room to
serve as a hall between the two new buildings. Not only did the
long room keep the rain off, but it gave Charisse a large storage
area for the equipment both for her laboratory and
greenhouse.
Drake led the way
through the laboratory to the storage room, heading toward the
greenhouse. Obviously the killer had spent time in the greenhouse
and it was possible they could find something to lead them to
wherever the opium was being placed in the soaps that had been
manufactured in town.
“Wait,” Charisse
whispered as they moved through the darkened storage room. The
early morning light couldn’t penetrate the layers of dirt and grime
on the windows. She stepped out of the line and placed her hand on
the wall. “Can you smell that? Blood. I can smell blood. It’s faint
but it’s this way.”
“That’s a wall,
Charisse,” Remy felt compelled to point out.
She shook her head.
“I used to play in there when I was a child. It’s a hidden passage
that was for the servants long ago when this area was a plantation.
There’s a narrow hallway that leads downstairs to a rambling,
condemned series of rooms that had been used at one time to house
slaves. I haven’t been down there for years, but I can smell the
blood. I’m certain, Drake.”
A chill went down
Drake’s spine. His leopard was close to the surface, yet he hadn’t
scented the blood. There was no doubt in his mind that if Charisse
said she smelled it—that she did—unless . . . He didn’t want to
think he was wrong about her and she was leading them all into a
trap. He glanced back at Remy and nodded with his head, silently
telling the man to bring up the rear—to keep his eye on
Charisse.
“You do know Iris
Lafont-Mercier can’t possibly be the killer, right?” Remy whispered
as they waited for Charisse to locate the hidden door in the wall.
He drew his gun. “She can’t shift. The killer is a shifter. You
just pointed the finger at Mama to get Charisse to allow us to
search her property right?”
Drake glanced at him
over his shoulder. “I’m leader of the lair, not the police, Remy. I
don’t require or want permission to search anywhere in the lair.
I’d just do it.”
There was a bite to
his voice he couldn’t help. Remy should have taken at him
ovadership of the lair, but instead, Drake was stuck with it and
Drake didn’t shirk his duty. He’d taken on the responsibility and
that meant cleaning it up. He had no doubt he was after a very
clever killer and right now, his radar was shrieking at him that he
was leading Saria right into a trap. Iris didn’t need to shift all
the way to be the killer. A partial shifting was unusual but
certainly happened when bloodlines weakened.
Charisse found the
mechanism for opening the door. Drake waved her back and stepped
into the darkened, dirty hallway. The scent of blood was stronger
here, wafting up from below. He could smell a mixture of fragrances
and an elusive scent his leopard cringed away from.
Saria stepped into
the space behind him and inhaled sharply. “I smell Mahieu—and
Armande. They’ve both been inside this passageway
recently.”
“Baby, maybe you
should . . .”
“Don’t say it, Drake.
Don’t.”
No. She wouldn’t stay
behind no matter how bad it got. Saria had too much backbone for
that. He could hear her heart thundering in her chest, her ragged
breathing. The smell of fear coming off of her was strong. She was
terrified for her brother, but she wasn’t going to hide upstairs
while he checked to make certain Mahieu was alive. Drake stopped
abruptly at the top of another narrow staircase.
“Those stairs are in
disrepair,” Charisse said. “No one ever comes here.”
There was an absence
of spiderwebs and the steps had been repaired in places. Still, it
looked as if a few of them might crack under a man’s weight. Drake
tested each step cautiously. There were seven and they wound around
a pillar down into another room and with each stair, the scent of
blood grew stronger. Vines from outside had reclaimed the structure
and pushed through the slats so that the swamp grew inside, snaking
up the walls to the ceiling and down along the floor.
Long tables spanned
the room. Small, fancy boxes and colored tissue paper were crammed
in the garbage cans. Remnants of perfumed soaps and stems of
withered plants were strewn around the floor as if they’d fallen
and no one had bothered sweeping up.
“Here’s where they
packed the opium into the soap,” Remy whispered.
Charisse made a small
sound and leaned down to examine a crack in the table. When she
would have touched a small, hardened bead caught in the crack, Remy
stopped her, touching her hand and shaking his head.
Drake halted just
past the second table. Fresh blood smeared the edge of the table, a
bloody handprint where someone had grabbed the table to steady
themselves. His heart plunged and he couldn’t help the small glance
he spared for Saria. Her gaze was fixed there. She couldn’t fail to
scent her own brother’s blood. The scent of Armande Mercier was
strong in the room. There was no doubt he had been in the stuffy
room quite recently.
An open door on the
far side of the room led to another hallway. Wood rot and vines
crept through the cracked siding. As with most dwellings in the
area, the house had been built a good seven feet above ground,
allowing for the water that poured into the area each season,
flooding the land continually. The hall led down to the space
below.
As he approached the
room, Drake scented a leopard’s lair. This one was damp, dark and
smelled overwhelmingly of depravity. Every leopard could smell
corruption to some degree. This lair stank of it, of an evil,
immoral degenerate. This lair had been used in more than one life
cycle, home to a cruel, cunning monster or monsters.
As he took another
step, Drake caught the coppery scent of blood, a man’s cologne and
fear. He moved in silence, his leopard lending him stealth as he
rounded the corner and caught sight of Armande crouched over
Mahieu. One bloody hand ground into the wound in Mahieu’s belly,
while another gripped his throat. Across from the two men, Iris
Lafont-Mercier stood with a tear-streaked face, one hand extended
pleadingly toward her son.
Remy shoved passed
Drake, gun in his hand and leapt toward Armande. Charisse screamed
and leapt after him. Although her leopard hadn’t emerged, there was
no doubt that she had one rising close to the surface. She covered
the distance in a single leap, trying to shove Remy away from her
brother. Simultaneously, Iris was on her daughter, jerking her
backward, dragging Charisse with her, a razor-sharp knife against
her throat.
“Mama, no!” Armande
begged, trying to roll out from under Remy.
“Don’t you dare!”
Drake roared. His weapon was absolutely steady.
Charisse squeezed her
eyes closed tight, not daring to breathe. Hatred filled the small
room. Remy and Armande remained crouched beside Mahieu, working
furiously to stem the flow of blood.
Saria moved out from
behind Drake, into the center of the room. Iris’s green-yellow eyes
tracked her, filled with loathing. She snarled, exposing long
canines. Her gaze followed Saria’s every movement, focused with a
predator’s stare. Saria took another step to her right, forcing
Iris to turn slightly to keep facing her.
Drake’s mouth went
dry. He had no doubt that Iris was an expert with a knife. Saria
was deliberately putting herself in harm’s way. One toss of the
knife and Saria was dead. Iris would still have weapons. The others
thought she had no leopard, but it was evident to him from the
scents in the lair that her leopard was strong. She might not be
able to fully shift, but some with weakened bloodlines could
partially change and her leopard was filled with hatred, giving her
the strength for a partial shift.
“Did you think you
could hide from Drake, Iris?” Saria asked, her voice low. “You
looked to that old man Buford for strength. He was an old fat slug,
takin’ advantage of any woman he thought was weak. You loved a
coward. You admired a man who raped and beat women and you thought
that was strength.” She poured disgust into her voice, not just
disgust, but amusement, as if she was secretly laughing at
Iris.
Drake knew what Saria
was doing—goading Iris into staying completely focused on her. She
knew Iris, they lived in a small area, and were in each other’s
lives. She knew her vanities, the things that would make her lose
her ability to think beyond what Saria taunted her with. She had
accessed the situation the same way he had. Mahieu needed immediate
medical attention, and Charisse was going to die if they didn’t
kill Iris first.
“You hated your
daughter because she was everythin’ you aren’t. She’s beautiful and
intelligent. She’s worth millions of dollars and she brought fame
to a name you despise. You hated your husband because you couldn’t
hold him,” Saria continued. “Everyone knew it. I heard whispers
when I was a child. He wasn’t faithful to you, was he? You couldn’t
hold a man like that. You couldn’t hold either of them, could you?
Buford or Bartheleme.”
Drake waited for the
perfect shot. Another inch, baby. I need her
to turn another inch just to be certain. He could make the
shot if there was no other choice, but she still might be able to
slice through Charisse’s throat and she was vicious enough to take
her daughter with her just for spite.
Iris bared her teeth
and a slow hiss emerged. “I was the one who had affairs, not that
idiot of a husband. He didn’t think I was clever. Only Charisse.
Always his precious Charisse. If Charisse is so beautiful and
intelligent, how come every one of her boyfriends slept with me?
How come they all did anything I asked of them? Charisse is so
damned stupid she didn’t even know what was happenin’ under her
nose.”
“The opium? You and
Buford cooked that up between you.”
Drake was so proud of
Saria’s steady voice. She spoke as if she’d known the truth for
years, as if she wasn’t guessing at all. She took another step
toward the right and her hand slid down to the knife at her
belt.
His heart jumped, but
he didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just waited for that one moment that
was certain to come. Not too close, he
silently advised, wishing he could leap in front of Saria, but he
had to trust her—trust her leopard to protect her. Iris was insane
and her leopard was just as mad. There was no telling what she
would do now that she was cornered.
“Stupid girl. Buford
and I made so much money right under her uptight goody-goody nose.”
Iris’s gaze shifted just for a moment to the moldy chests stacked
to the back of the room. Vines climbed around them, but each one
had a brand new lock. Her treasures. “We fucked in Bartheleme’s bed
all the time and even in her bed. She never knew, not even with her
precious nose—the nose her father wanted to insure.” There was such
a mixture of loathing and contempt in her voice, Charisse began to
weep.
“Maybe you did,”
Saria conceded, “but you needed the nonscent Charisse developed,
didn’t you? Buford used you for his own gain. While he was fuckin’
you, he was doin’ the same to a hundred other women.”
“Whores. They were
whores throwin’ themselves at him. I killed them and left their
bodies to rot with the gators.”
“Please. Please.”
Armande wept. “She needs help.”
Drake would bet his
last dollar that Buford had given Iris gifts and she kept them
here, in her lair. The money from the opium was kept in the cases
until she could filter it through businesses in town or more
likely—to implicate Charisse—the perfume store.
“Mama, please,”
Armande pushed to his feet and held out his hand to his mother.
“You don’t know what you’re doin’ . You don’t know what you’re
sayin’.”
“You shouldn’t be
here,” Iris screamed at her son, her face darkening to rage. She
shook Charisse, her grip powerful, the thin veneer of civilization
completely gone. “Why did you come with him, Armande? You ruined
everythin’ . I could have fixed this mess, just like I’ve been
takin’ care of the messes the two of you have gotten into. Those
disgustin’ girls, none of them suitable. What were you thinkin’,
Armande. You would have disgraced the Lafont name, matin’ with one.
Your child needed to be a shifter.”
Saria let out a
tinkling laugh’re still quotin’ Buford Tregre. He raped dozens of
women. He laughed at you. Threw you away. And yet you choose to
revere him. You’re twisted, Iris. You’re the disgrace to the Lafont name, not your
children.” She poured amusement into her voice, a taunting,
deliberate goad designed to needle Iris. “Trottin’ after him was so
pathetic, wasn’t it? Killin’ all the women he made love to? You
couldn’t stand the thought of him wantin’ those others. You just
weren’t good enough, were you?”
Easy baby, Drake tried to caution her. Iris was
working herself up to a killing spree.
“He wanted me. He
couldn’t leave me alone. They were nothin’ to him, just like the women Armande
used.”
“He wanted you so
much he wouldn’t be seen in public with you,” Saria persisted. “You
snuck around and he used you in the swamp, in the dirt and muck,
hidin’ you from the world because he was so ashamed.”
Oh, God, she was
pushing the woman too hard. He could see the smoldering fury
burning behind those yellow eyes. All traces of green were gone and
the gaze was fixed on Saria. Iris had forgotten Charisse, and her
daughter was watching Saria for a sign. Charisse understood the
gravity of her position, unlike Armande, who Remy continued to
restrain, even as he kept pressure on Mahieu’s wound.
Drake’s stomach
dropped. Mahieu. Saria could smell his blood. From where she was
standing she could see his wound—knew just how desperate the
situation for him was—and she was doing more than setting Iris up
for his shot. She was maneuvering her into the corner. She intended
to end this as quickly as possible—and in any way she could—even if
it meant attacking the woman herself.
“When the world finds
out about Iris Lafont crawlin’ after Buford Tregre, killin’ his
women, killin’ her son’s women and so desperate she had to stoop to
seducin’ boys her daughter dated and
then killin’ them, everyone will laugh every time the name Lafont
is mentioned.”
Iris shrieked,
spittle flying from her mouth. Her face contorted, elongated, teeth
filling her mouth and fur mottling her skin.
“Drop!” Saria called,
throwing herself to the side with amazing speed.
Boneless, like a
supple cat, Charisse slid to the floor as Iris hurtled the knife at
Saria. Simultaneously, Drake squeezed the trigger. A single hole
blossomed in the middle of Iris Lafont-Mercier’s forehead. She lay
on the dirt floor in a crumpled heap, looking small and somewhat
macabre with her face half leopard and half woman.
Armande screamed, but
he rushed to his sister, leaving his mother crumpled on the floor.
He gathered Charisse into his arms, their sobs filling the small
space. Saria sat on the floor looking up at Drake, sorrow in her
eyes, blood dripping from her upper arm.
“She was fast,” she
admitted.
Drake was on her in
seconds, clamping his hand over the wound. It couldn’t have been
more than a flesh wound, but it was terrifying to him.
“Call an ambulance,”
Remy commanded. “We need it now.”