Cry Wolf

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ke

He stared at her through the haze of smoke that hovered over his cluttered desk, his eyes narrowed to slits, his mouth twisting at the need to snarl.

"So you think Baldwin killed your sister and all them other dead girls?"

Laurel bit back a curse. Her fingers tightened on the arms of the visitor's chair. "That isn't what I said."

"Hell, no," Ke

"It is not-"

"Jesus, I've been just waiting to hear this-"

"Then why don't you listen?"

"-haven't I, Steve?"

Danjermond, lounging against a row of putty-color file cabinets, tightened his jaw at the shortening of his name. Ke

"I've just been waiting for you to come charging in here, pointing fingers and naming names."

"I'm only trying to give you information. It's my civic duty-"

"Fuck that, lady." He cut her off, leaning over the desk to tap his cigarette off in the ashtray. "You're trying to make trouble, same as you did up in Georgia. Point your finger, shoot your mouth off, get your name in the paper. You get off on that or something?"

Laurel ground her teeth and cut a look Danjermond's way, wondering why the hell he didn't do something. "I never said Baldwin killed anyone. I just thought you might like to know-"

"That he's some kind of pervert. A preacher." Ke

"Well, I doubt you are," Laurel snapped, coming up out of her chair. She planted her hands on Ke

While Ke

"Now, Duwayne," he said calmly. "Miz Chandler came in here with the best of intentions. If she believes she has information pertinent to the case, you ought to listen."

"Pertinent to the case!" Ke

Fury misting her vision red, Laurel all but dove for his throat. "You son of a bitch!"

Ke

"But you're not saying it very tactfully," Danjermond pointed out, frowning.

"Shit, I don't have time to be David Fucking Niven. I've got a murder to solve." He snagged another Camel from the pack and lit it with a match, his gaze hard on Laurel. "Leave the investigating to me, Ms. Chandler."

"Fine," Laurel said through her teeth. "But it would probably be helpful if you would take your head out of your ass so you could see to do it."

Ke

"And that's what you would have said about A

Ke

Gracefully, he turned her toward the door and ushered her into the outer office, where Ke

Adrenaline still pumping, Laurel glared at them. "What the hell are you looking at?"

Eyebrows shot up as heads ducked down. Danjermond continued into the hall without pause, herding her along. His grip on her arm seemed deceptively light, but when she tried to discreetly pull away, she couldn't.

"I'll thank you to let me go, Mr. Danjermond," Laurel said softly, angrily, her eyes flashing fiercely as she looked up at him. "I didn't appreciate your little Good Cop-Bad Cop routine back there. I'm not some wide-eyed civilian walking in here with a head full of gossip."

"No," he said calmly, never altering his stride or his expression, but there was something hard in his gaze as he glanced down at her. "You're a former prosecutor with a reputation for making allegations you can't back up. How did you expect him to react?"

There was considerable activity in the hall. Court was in session, but in addition to the usual cadre of attorneys and clerks and stenographers, there were reporters hovering like vultures, waiting for some meat on the latest of the Bayou Strangler's cases. Laurel sensed their presence. Her stomach tightened, and the hair on the back of her neck rose as she felt eyes turn her way-eyes that brightened with feral anticipation at the sight of her walking arm in arm with the parish's golden boy district attorney. Just as in old times, they homed in, scrambling to switch on tape recorders, fumbling for pencils and notebooks. They came forward in a rush, sound bursting out of them like a television that had suddenly been turned on high volume.

"Mr. Danjermond!"

"Ms. Chandler!"

"-is there any co

"-are you aiding in the investigation-?"

"-have there been any new leads-?"

Danjermond walked on, calm as Moses strolling through the Red Sea. "No comment. We have no comment to make at this time. Ms. Chandler has no comment."

Hating herself for it, Laurel leaned into him and let him take the brunt of the media storm. He guided her into his outer office, and while he dealt the press a final, frustrating "No comment" at the door, she made a beeline past the curious gaze of his secretary and went into the quiet of his i

The details of the office penetrated only peripherally-hunter green walls, heavy brass lamps, dark leather chairs, the smell of furniture polish and cherry tobacco, a place for everything and everything in its place. The shades were drawn, giving the room the feeling of twilight. The mood of the room may have soothed her, but she was too caught up in the churning memories and emotions and self-recriminations. The way she had lost her temper with Ke

She gulped a breath and stopped her pacing, bringing up both hands to press them against her temples. As in a dream, she could see herself tearing her office apart, wild, ranting, throwing things, smashing things, screaming until her assistant, Michael Hellerman, had called in Bubba Vandross from security to come and subdue her.

After months of riding that mental edge, she had gone over. She wasn't on the brink now, but she was damn close. The frustration of trying to deal with Ke

And then the press. God, would she never escape the loop of recurrences? If she had gone to Bermuda instead of Bayou Breaux, would she now be standing in the magistrate's office, embroiled in some island intrigue?

She let out a shuddering breath and tried to let go some of the tension in her shoulders. She needed to regroup, to think things through. She needed to find Sava

She ran a hand over the soft leather of her pocketbook, thinking of the odd trinkets she had dropped into it-the earring, the necklace, the matchbook. She had shown none of them to Ke

The matchbook lingered in her mind. Jack turning it over with his nimble musician's fingers. His expression going carefully blank at the sight of the name. A leather bar in the Quarter. Secretive, seclusive, exclusive. A place where masks were commonplace and anything might be had for a price or a thrill. He had been there doing research for a book.

He had pi

Jimmy Lee Baldwin was into bondage, Sava

Sava

Nausea swirled around Laurel's stomach, and she leaned against an antique credenza and closed her eyes.

"Would you care for a brandy?"

She jerked her head up as Danjermond closed the door softly behind him.

"For medicinal purposes, of course," he added with a ghost of a smile.

"No," she said, stiffening her knees, squaring her shoulders. "No, thank you."