“You bitch,” he growled, clutching at his eye. “You're gonna pay for this. You're gonna pay till you wished you'd never been born a woman.”
Serena managed to turn and raise herself up as he swung his foot at her. The kick caught her shoulder instead of the side of her head. Pain exploded through her at the blow and then again as she went facefirst to the ground, unable to break the fall.
“Get her in the boat,” Willis ordered, and staggered away, still rubbing at his eye.
Perret once again took hold of her makeshift bridle and hauled her to her feet. They loaded her with a minimum of ceremony into a battered aluminum-hulled boat with a massive outboard motor hanging off the back. It was the kind of thing poachers might use, Serena suspected, with enough horsepower to outrun the game warden—or the odd Lone Ranger. The boat was loaded with traps and tarps, empty whiskey bottles and crushed beer cans. There were a number of small holes in the side above the water line that may well have been caused by bullets. It reeked of swamp water and fish. Perret forced her to sit on the bottom on a wadded-up piece of damp black canvas with her back against the side of the boat, the unadorned edge biting into her spine. Then Pou started the motor and piloted them away from the bank while Willis attempted to flush the Mace from his eye with beer.
The fear that rose inside Serena threatened to swallow her whole. She could feel it growing stronger, clawing at her, tearing at her mind as the boat carried her away from Sheridan land. She wanted to scream, but the screams caught in the back of her throat and choked her. She wanted to run, but there was nowhere to run to; there was nothing around her but black water and swamp.
God, they were taking her into the swamp! The terror she normally felt at the prospect of going out there doubled, then tripled. She better than anyone knew how easy it was for a person to become lost. By the time anyone realized she was missing, it would be virtually impossible to find her. Willis and Perret could do anything they wanted. There would be no witnesses. There would be no one to hear her screams. Suddenly her future looked worse than anything her nightmares had ever conjured.
She wondered wildly what their orders were. What exactly had Burke paid them to do? Scare her into selling? Get her out of the way while he made a deal for the land? Use her as a hostage with Chanson du Terre as her ransom price? It seemed unlikely. Too dangerous to Burke and to Tristar. That left only one possibility. Burke would get her out of the way—permanently.
That deduction brought another wave of fear. Tears gathered in her eyes, but she fought them back. Control. That was her only hope—to keep her head, to keep her cool, to look for the opportunity to escape.
With effort she forced the fear back, compressed it and shoved it into a mental compartment and shut the door. Fear would get her nothing. It was a waste of time and energy. It would do her no good to cry and shake. It would do not good to wish for a rescuer. Lucky wasn't going to swoop down from a tree and save her. He was at Mouton's drowning his sorrows, and she was on her own. She could save herself or she could be tortured and killed. It was as simple as that.
Still trembling, she forced herself to look around and take in landmarks. If she concentrated hard enough, she might be able to memorize the route they were taking and retrace it once she managed to get away. She thought it was the same way Lucky had gone to get her to Gifford's, but she wasn't sure. It was growing darker by the second, making it very difficult to see, and the bayou branched off too many times for her to be certain of the turns.
The swamp closed in around them, dark and silent beyond the puttering of the motor. Perret slowed the boat to a crawl as he negotiated the way among a stand of cypress. Willis sprawled in one of the boat's two bucket seats, facing Serena. He had stopped using the beer from his cooler to rinse his eye and had started drinking it instead.
Serena could feel his gaze on her, lingering on her breasts. She tried to shrug it off, but the feeling clung as tenaciously as the mosquitoes that were feasting on the exposed skin of her throat and face. She had worn a long-sleeved blouse and slacks, knowing better than to go out into the fields at dusk uncovered, but she had forgotten Lucky's warning about her perfume. She had dabbed some on after her shower, needing to feel feminine after a day of grubbing around in the ashes of the machine shed, and hadn't thought to wash it off before leaving the house.
Willis slid down from his perch to kneel on the tarp in front of her. Serena eyed him warily. His left eye was nearly swollen shut, giving him an even more monstrous appearance than before. Beer had spilled unheeded over his shirt, adding to the sour stench of his sweat. He raised a hand and brushed his rough-skinned knuckles along her jaw, smiling like a snake in the fading light.
“They don't call that Cajun bastard Lucky for nothing, do they?” he said. “You're some fancy piece.”
Serena fought the urge to shrink away from his touch. An animal like Willis would feed on fear. She bit down on the gag and schooled her features into what she hoped was a blank mask.
“What would a lady like you see in that coonass trash anyway?” he asked, his eyes roaming over her as if the answer might be written somewhere on her body. His leering grin spread across his thin, hard lips and his good eye lit up. “I'll bet he's hung like a stallion. Do proper ladies like you go for that? A man with the right kind of tool for the job? Who would'a guessed?”
He chuckled, apparently as amused by her lack of response as he would have been by a protest.
“You know,” he went on, still stroking her jaw, “when I was up in Angola I had a picture of a pretty blonde on the wall of my cell. I used to dream about doing her every night. She looked a lot like you . . . only she was naked.”
He lowered his hand from her chin to the first button on her white silk blouse and popped it open with a flick of thumb and forefinger. Bile rose in Serena's throat, but she swallowed it as another pearl button gave way and another. She bit down harder on the gag and stared straight ahead as Willis opened her blouse and feasted his eyes on her breasts.
“Nice,” he whispered, leaning closer. He traced the lacy edge of her bra once, then again, this time dipping his finger inside the fabric to caress the slope of her breast. “I can hardly wait to see the rest.”
Serena couldn't stop the involuntary shiver that rippled across her skin. The thought of this man putting his big ugly hands all over her body, touching her softest, most private flesh, was utterly repulsive.
Willis caught the reaction and gave a laugh that held more menace than humor. He engulfed one breast in his hand and gave it a squeeze that bordered on painful.
“You might as well get used to it, Lady Serena, 'cause ol' Pou and me are gonna have you every way there is before we're through with you.”
She nearly vomited at the mental images his warning conjured. Serena had counseled rape victims. She'd heard tales of abuse that had made her wonder what kind of God allowed such atrocities. Details came back to her now, vivid and horrible. She flicked a glance over the side of the boat at the inky water and wondered fleetingly if she wouldn't be better off drowning herself now.
It was then that they finally reached their destination. Perret guided the boat in alongside a ramshackle dock and cut the engine. Willis hefted himself and his beer cooler out of the boat and started up the incline toward the cabin, leaving Serena for his lackey. Pou's eyes fastened on the open front of her blouse and he reached out to touch her, but pulled back at the sound of Willis's voice.
“Wait till we get her inside,” he ordered. “Goddamn mosquitoes are driving me nuts.”
The cabin looked abandoned. A tar-paper shack on stilts, it was the sort of place Serena had imagined Lucky living in before she'd seen his house. The yard was little more than mud and stringy grass. It was littered with junk—beer cans and bottles, tires, an old refrigerator with the door hanging open. There was a rusted car of indeterminate age sitting some distance away in a stand of weeds.
A car. That had to mean there was a road. But what good would a road do her if she was on foot? They would run her down just as they had before. Her only hope would be to lose herself in the woods.
What a hope—to lose herself in the dead of night, bound and gagged, in a wilderness that terrified her. Her old fear stirred strongly, but the new one was even worse. She had survived the swamp before; she would not survive what Willis and Perret had in store for her.
Willis had gone inside. Perret steered her across the yard, his fingers wound into the back of the gag again, pulling her hair. He was a small man, only about as tall as she was and thin, anemic-looking. His chest had a sunken look and his dirty jeans clung low on nonexistent hips. He wouldn't be nearly as strong as Willis, but he was quick. If she could manage to get free of him, she would have to do a better job of escaping than she had the first time.
Serena stepped up her pace toward the cabin so he was no longer shoving her along, but quickening his step.
“You in a hurry,
chère
?” he asked, laughing, displaying an alarming array of crooked rotten teeth. “Me too.”
Sticking her right foot out to trip Perret, Serena pulled up abruptly and twisted her upper body sharply away to the left. One second Perret was chortling like a fiend, enjoying his dominance over her, the next second he was on the ground, tangled among a mess of old tires and rusty chicken wire.
Serena wasted no time looking back to see if he was coming after her. She dashed into the woods and ran blindly, dodging trees at the last second, stumbling over roots. She zigzagged, cut back, turned again, and ran on. Branches cut at her face and tore at her clothes. There was no light, only darkness and the blacker shapes of trees. She slammed her shoulder into one and had to stop and double over while pain rocked through her.
Crouching there against the trunk of a persimmon tree, she took quick stock of her various aches, all of them renewed by this latest blow. Her hands had started to go numb behind her back, but she was very aware of her right forearm where Willis had struck to dislodge the can of Mace. It felt as if it had been hit with an ax handle. Her left shoulder had taken Willis's boot and now the tree trunk as well, and it throbbed relentlessly. Her muscles had started to cramp from the awkward position of her arms. There were a dozen other assorted pains, but at least she was alive and free. For the moment.
Her breath soughed in and out of her lungs, muffled by the gag. The cloth had loosened somewhat from Perret pulling on it, and Serena thought she might be able to work it free. She pressed her face against the trunk of the tree and rubbed her cheek against it, trying to work the bandanna down. The hard, scaly bark of the tree scraped her skin, but she persisted. Progress came gradually, but the gag finally fell free of her mouth. Still knotted into her hair in back, it hung like a noose around her neck. She leaned over and spat, trying in vain to get the taste of it out of her mouth.
Something slithered in the underbrush to her right, and Serena bolted, straining to see in the velvet darkness. She could hear the movement but couldn't tell what it was or precisely where it was. Memories crowded in her mind and tears rose up the back of her throat as she scanned the darkness all around, wondering wildly what awaited her. The swamp came alive at night, alive with hunters and the hunted.
“God, that's me,” she whispered, tears of despair stinging her eyes.
She didn't have the benefit of natural camouflage most animals of the swamp possessed. She had to stand out like a beacon in the night in her white blouse and khaki slacks.
Some distance behind her she could hear someone crashing through the growth. As she forced herself to press on, she wondered if Perret had come after her on his own or if Willis had joined him. She changed directions again and started running.
If only she could see. If only she had the use of her hands. If only she weren't so damned scared. If only Lucky were there.
Lucky. She wondered if she'd ever see him again. It seemed a stupid thing to think of, all things considered, but she wondered if he had any idea how much she loved him. She wondered if she'd had any idea herself before now. Running for her life put a lot of things into perspective, and she found herself making promises to God.
If I get out of this, I'll patch things up with Shelby, I'll forgive Gifford, I'll give more to charity, I'll try harder to reach Lucky
.
She would see him again if she kept running. She had to believe that. If she kept running, everything would turn out all right. She would be safe, Burke would get caught, she would see Lucky again. If she kept running. If she got away.
The night air was like fire in her lungs. She could no longer hear anything except her own breathing and the thunderous beating of her heart. Her head was pounding. The damp, musty scent of the forest filled her nostrils. The spongy ground seemed to dip and rise beneath her feet. She felt completely disoriented, almost dizzy, hanging somewhere between hysteria and delirium.
She thought that if she could somehow get to Lucky's house she could use his CB radio to call for help or maybe she could find his gun. But she didn't make it to Lucky's house. An exposed root caught the toe of her loafer and pitched her headlong into the blackness. She landed on her face at the booted feet of Mean Gene Willis.
CHAPTER
17
“
COME ON, SWEET STUFF, LET
'
S GO SOMEWHERE WE
can have us a little private party.”
Lucky regarded the blonde draping herself over his left side with ill-concealed impatience. The woman had no self-control and less sense of danger. She had approached him the instant he'd settled himself behind the corner table at Mouton's, too stubborn or too stupid to notice that everyone else in the place was giving him a wide berth. As well-endowed as she was in other respects, she had obviously gotten severely short-changed in the brain department. The woman couldn't take a hint. He had snarled and snapped at her, but the efforts had bounced off her shield of stupidity, leaving her unmoved.
It was aggravating. He hadn't come looking for an easy lay; he'd come looking for trouble. He had come in to soak his temper in cheap booze and hope some big fool would strike a spark to it and pick a fight with him. He felt a need to hit something. It was what he'd done the night before, and it was what he planned to continue to do with his nights until he got it out of his system.
The blonde had other ideas.
She leaned against him, tilting her head back and squeezing her breasts together with her upper arms to best display her cleavage. The black tank top she wore seemed to have been intended for a flat-chested twelve-year-old. It rode up well above the waistband of her skin-tight jeans and made it abundantly clear to one and all that she found wearing a bra too restricting. She seemed to have difficulty keeping her eyes open, probably due to the thickness of her blue eye shadow and the weight of her false lashes. Her silvery-blond hair—brown at the roots—had been teased and tormented into a frightening confection and lacquered into place with enough spray to put a hole in the ozone the size of Lake Pontchartrain. The earrings dangling from her lobes looked like small chandeliers.
Lucky heaved a sigh of disgust. The woman had no class. She smelled like dime-store perfume and stale smoke, and she'd drunk most of his whiskey. She was pretty enough in a cheap, hard sort of way, and she had a body that had undoubtedly turned a head or two, but she roused nothing in him except irritation. She might have done better if she'd shown a little style, a little cool, if she'd presented herself as a . . . lady. Like Serena.
He swore a vicious oath in French and tossed back what was left of his drink. What did he need with a
lady?
What did he need with a woman who wanted to touch his rawest nerves and memories? She was nothing but trouble. She would never let him alone. She would never allow him the emotional distance he needed to maintain. He'd told her from the beginning what she would get from him, and still she'd dug for more. She wanted love and he wanted nothing to do with it. End of story.
So why was he brooding about her? a mocking inner voice asked. Why was he wondering how she had handled Burke and how she was bearing up with Shelby? Why did he want to know if she had exhausted her supply of strength, if she was in need of a shoulder to lean on?
He swore again and shrugged the blonde off, reaching for the bottle of whiskey on the table before him. The blonde—her name had gone in one ear and out the other—sat back with a coy look and helped herself to his cigarettes.
“You're a tough guy,” she observed, blowing smoke at the ceiling in a pose that was calculated to show off her profile. “A loner.” Her shoulders swayed, and unencumbered breasts bounced in time to the frantic Zydeco tune blasting from the jukebox.
Lucky shot her a sardonic look. “What are you? Einstein's daughter?”
She went on with her seduction routine as if he hadn't spoken. “I like a tough guy. I don't mind a little adventure, if you read me.”
“Like a book.”
“So-oo-o . . .” She drew the word into three syllables, squirming a little on her chair and giving him a dazzling smile, raising her carefully plucked eyebrows in question.
Lucky's answer was forestalled by the arrival of Skeeter Mouton. Skeeter pulled up a chair on Lucky's right and settled his bulk on it, mopping the sweat off his forehead with a bar rag. A smile lit up in the center of his beard like a crescent moon, but it didn't reach his dark eyes.
“Hey, Lucky, where you at?”
Lucky ignored the greeting and poured himself another drink. “You been waterin' the whiskey again, Skeeter.”
The bartender clutched his heart dramatically. His round face tightened in a wounded expression. “Me?
Mais non!
Madame Mouton, she keeps the books, she waters the liquor. How can you accuse me of such a thing when me, I come all the way over here to give you information?”
“Information 'bout what?”
“Your two friends.”
It was on the tip of Lucky's tongue to tell Mouton he didn't care what Willis and Perret were up to. He was all through fighting other people's battles. From now on he was adhering to a strict code of isolationism. No more damsels in distress. No more plantations to save. He was living for himself; the rest of the world could go to hell. But Skeeter went on, oblivious of Lucky's inner thoughts.
“They had them a little meetin' s'afternoon.”
“Who with?” Not that he cared. He was just mildly curious, that was all. He directed his gaze across the crowded smoky room to where Len Burke sat deep in angry conversation with Perry Davis. “With him?”
Mouton shook his head. “
Non
. The big oil man, he been right here the whole time. The other two, they got a call and went out, come back a while later smilin' like 'gators and throwin' money 'round. This was all just before you got here. You walk in, they slip out the side.”
“So?”
The round man shrugged and rolled his eyes, digging a folded bill out of a pocket on his apron. He waved it under Lucky's nose as if the smell of it might rouse him to show greater interest. “So this is the bill they tipped their waitress with. 'Toinette, she was just showin' it to me 'cause she never had a tip so big. She 'bout fainted.” He gave a snort of disapproval. “A twenty-dollar tip. Talk about!”
Lucky glanced at the bill in irritation. It was crisp and new, the kind of money decent people carried. In his experience, trash like Willis carried money that looked as dirty as the kind of deals that brought it to them. If Willis was leaving fresh twenties for cocktail waitresses, then it was a good bet there were lots more where this one had come from. He would have had to come into a tidy sum to inspire that kind of generosity. Gene Willis wasn't known for his philanthropy.
“'Toinette, she says Willis had a roll of those as thick as a 'gator's tail. Me, I don' figure he got 'em sellin' Bibles and he ain't been on the bayou since the night you shot up his boat full o' holes, so he didn' get 'em from stealin' crawfish. Somebody payin' him this kinda money . . .” Mouton shrugged and mopped his forehead. “Must be some kinda dirty job,
oui?
”
Lucky stared at the bill, rubbing the stiff paper absently between his fingers. This could have been the final payment for starting the fire, but if so, Willis and Perret would still be here, swilling Mouton's watered whiskey and playing
bourré
in the back room; the night was young.
Non
. This was payment for something else, something they were undoubtedly doing that very minute.
“You don' know what they were up to?”
Skeeter shook his head, frowning. “No good, dat's for sure. Willis, he said somethin' 'bout meetin' a lady. I didn' pay him no mind. What lady would meet with the like of him?”
Shelby, Lucky answered mentally. Serena was right, her sister would probably not have started the fire herself. The job was too dirty and physical. Shelby would have considered it well beneath her. But she wouldn't have hesitated to pay someone else to do it. And now she was paying them for another job.
“They took outta here, headed up the bayou.” Skeeter tilted his head, his dark eyes twinkling as he chuckled. “You sure put the air-conditioning in dat one,
cher
. Willis, he ain't never gonna get all them bullet holes patched up.”
The blonde, who had remained blessedly silent for all of five minutes, perked up suddenly at the mention of Willis's name. She leaned across the table toward Skeeter, making certain to twist herself around so Lucky could have another look at her amazing cleavage. “You know Mean Gene? He's a rowdy son of a bitch, ain't he?”
She threw her head back and gave a laugh that bore an unfortunate resemblance to the braying of a mule.
Lucky turned on her slowly, his eyes glittering. The dangerous look had caused more than one man to back away from him. The blonde just gave him a wink and a grin.
“How do you know Willis,
chère?
” he asked, his voice silky.
“Well, shoot, I know him
every
way.” She gave her donkey laugh again and slapped Lucky on the arm. “He's the one set me on to you, Ace. Said he reckoned you'd be needin' a woman 'cause yours was goin' someplace.” She flashed him her brightest smile and ran her hand up his thigh. “Remind me to thank him later.”
Everything inside Lucky went cold and still. He murmured a prayer in French and stood up slowly, like a man in a daze, his hands clutching the edge of the table.