Bad Moon Rising

KATHERINE SUTCLIFFE

JOVE BOOKS, NEW YORK

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY

Jove edition / June 2003

Copyright © 2003 by Katherine Sutcliffe Cover design by Marc Cohen

ISBN: 0-515-13487-2

CONTENTS:

GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT  PROLOGUE  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  EPILOGUE

GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT

As always, my sincere appreciation to my editor, Christine Zika, for her belief in my books and her uncanny ability to keep me on track. To my agent, Evan Fogelman, whose en­couragement keeps the torch of hope burning brightly.

And to a few brilliant individuals who helped along the way.

Maureen Williamson, investigative reporter and reserve officer for the San Jacinto Police Department, who was al­ways ready and eager to answer any and all questions. Love you, Sis!

Natalie Collins, incredibly talented author of SisterWife, who came to my rescue when I needed her the most. (www.nataliercollins.com)

And a very special, heartfelt thank-you to retired New York Detective Dennis J. McGowan, who patiently took me under his wing through the writing of this book and ed­ucated me on the particulars of police work. The highly talented author of False Stature, Dennis took time away from his own writing to hold my hand through it all and assure me I could pull it all together.

Always remember, Dennis: I’ve got your back! (www.dennisjmcgowan.com)

To my readers. Thanks for your continued support! You’re appreciated more than you know. (www.KatherineSutcliffe.net)

PROLOGUE

The bitch is harder to kill than most others.

Her wide eyes stare up at him—whites showing around the stark blue of irises that are fast being eclipsed by her expanding pupils. He’s seen enough women die to know just how much longer he will need to wait before getting down to business.

He smiles and settles back in the chair, crosses his legs and checks his watch, first nudging down the surgical glove from the watch face—quarter of two. Ten minutes at the most and she will be a goner.

Tyra isn’t her real name, of course. Hookers never use their real names—like the dancers and waitresses over on Bourbon Street, the sluts who take care of their high-roller clientele back in the VIP and champagne lounges of the tittie clubs.

She looks like a Nicole. Perhaps an Amanda. Definitely the cheerleader type. Long blond hair, long legs, and collagen-puffed lips that make her look as if she’s taken a deep suck off a green persimmon. Better looking than most paid whores, granted.

But, a whore is a whore is a whore.

A parasite deserving of extermination.

“Would you like to scream?” he asks. “Go ahead. I won’t stop you.”

She opens her mouth and gurgles. The blood would be filling up her throat by now, what hasn’t drained out around the ice pick in her neck, just below the jawline. There is an art to such a wound—the precision of it so masterful a surgeon would be tempted to applaud him. The thrust had been deep and clean, puncturing the wind­pipe and vocal chords. She hadn’t seen it coming. He’d simply yanked back her head and slid the pick into her throat—careful to miss the jugular.

She can’t scream, of course. But he does so enjoy teas­ing them. It helps to pass the time.

Ten of two.

On the floor near his feet is Saturday’s newspaper, the Times-Picayune. He nudges it carefully with his foot so he can better read the front page ...

SERIAL KILLER SCHEDULED TO DIE MONDAY

Angel Gonzalez, a Mexican drifter who was con­victed for the murders of seven women and two children, will be put to death Monday....

“Poor bastard.” He chuckles and shakes his head. “Imagine how they’re going to feel when they find out you were innocent.”

Oh well. The scum sucker had admitted to child mo­lestation and if anyone deserved to get burned, it was child molesters—short circuit them until their brains bub­ble out of their ears.

He reaches for the backpack on the floor and hefts it into his lap, unzips it, and digs out the scalpel and hack­saw, peels aside the red felt in which he has so carefully wrapped them—a master of his trade must always take special care of the tools of his craft—sets them aside, then begins to undress. First, the Nikes. He tucks them into the backpack—no socks, they are just one more piece of ev­idence that he will have to dispose of. Then, his jeans— no underwear, of course—and his Mardi Gras T-shirt; fold them all neatly and tuck them into the backpack as well, zip it closed for safe measure, unzip the coin pocket and withdraw a condom packet, collect the scalpel and saw, then walk to the bed, careful to avoid the growing pool of blood on the floor beneath the mattress.

Lifting the foil packet up for her to see, he winks. “Ribbed for pleasure.”

She struggles weakly. The wires around her wrists and ankles have already cut through her flesh. Tyra obviously isn’t doing herself any favors, but it’s certainly enough to get his juices flowing. Oh, yeah.

“See this?” He lifts the scalpel. “I’m going to cut you open with this, Tyra. Yes, I am. I’m going to lay open your flat, pretty stomach and eviscerate you. Do you know what that means, cutie?”

She thrashes. Her eyeballs are starting to swell and quiver.

Oh, yeah. Having fun now. His blood is warming. Head a little dizzy. The aroma of death hangs in the sweltering air like the titillating scent of a horny woman.

He glances down at the penis. Almost there.

Then he raises the hacksaw. “Tyra, are you paying close attention, dear? Now, don’t die on me yet. Hang on for just a moment longer. You wouldn’t want to miss all the fun, would you? I’m going to cut off your head. I’m going to put it in that backpack, then we’re going to take a ride out of town where I’ll toss the backpack with you in it into the river.”

Feeling good now.

The penis is aroused and jutting from between his legs like a crowbar. Despicably ugly thing—engorged and painful—a constant source of trouble.

Big deep breath. Remove the condom from the packet and put it on. Careful, careful—oh, yes. Stroking himself now. Pumping gently. Sweat rising.

Her eyes begin to glaze and her chest rattles. She makes a pitiful attempt at squirming, which excites him more, and he strokes himself harder. “Come come, Tyra,” he says through his teeth. “You can do better than that.”

The psychologists who had profiled him four years ago had termed him a “Domineering Serial Killer”—a killer who enjoys seeing his victims suffer. Correct. He gets off on inspiring fear. Correct again. He gets more enjoyment from the victim’s fear, from feeling a sense of control and power over another human being than he does from the actual killing. They were off a little on that one, but hey, no one is perfect. This murderer does not suffer from de­lusions, visions, or voices. He is totally aware of what he is doing and may be very well versed in the laws and penal codes of his area. Nailed it. He had been tempted to send the team of head shrinkers a “booby” prize for their extreme intelligence but mutilating a woman’s finest assets had been a little too distasteful, even for him.

The somewhat disconcerting idea occurs to him that perhaps Tyra isn’t afraid to die—even embraces the idea. Not that he blames her. Surely death is preferable to this sordid life of whoredom, night after night of spreading her legs for any disease-infected creep who has a hard on and is willing to pay for his satisfaction.

Suddenly Mick Jagger’s voice rings inside his head— Can’t get no satisfaction—as if good old Mick had a prob­lem with that. Yeah, right.

What was it about women who didn’t give a flying frog about how ugly a man is as long as he has money and acclaim? Let some dude get his name on Entertainment Tonight and he is grade A number one prime beef. Fame and success are aphrodisiacs to the female species. He’s willing to bet that Jerry Hall wouldn’t have looked twice at Mick had he been a CPA or, better yet, the mechanic who changed the spark plugs in her Ferrari.

He realizes then that Tyra is dead. She hadn’t so much as given a shudder. Her eyes are frozen open and void as two copper pennies.

Looking down at his penis, he watches it shrivel and the condom droop like a deflated balloon.

Damn.

1

BRANSON, MISSOURI

Holly Jones drifted on the edge of sleep, too exhausted to fight it, yet too happy over the day’s events to give in yet to her dreams. She wanted to relive every wonderful moment. Cherish them. Exalt in the pleasure she had experienced surrounded by people who loved her. She could still taste the sweet marzipan icing of her birth­day cake. Hear the joyous, if not slightly off-key, rendi­tion of Happy Birthday, Holly! Candles glowing. Presents stacked high with bright ribbons and cards that declared her friends’ love and devotion. At long last, life was good. Life was wonderful! How long had she dreamed of this?

Bright balloons formed a dancing wall around her and overhead. They made her laugh as she batted them aside, the chorus of Happy Birthday, Holly resonating in the air as tears rose in her eyes.

When had she last been this happy? She felt as buoyant as the shimmering balloons that glowed with a strange iridescence from inside, and when she looked harder she realized that within each colorful globe burned a birthday candle, and within each tiny flickering flame she saw the faces of her friends. Peggy Sue Milligan, whose bouffant hair could withstand hurricane-force winds. Fred Keno­pensky, a retired Air Force captain who had been injured in Iwo Jima and who considered her as precious as the granddaughter he had lost to breast cancer ten years ago. Clarence McCarthy, who had taken her under his wing and trusted her enough to manage his prized gift shop and hinted that soon she would be capable of running the entire motel so he and his wife Lou Ann could at last retire and enjoy this bit of Shangri-La in the Ozarks.

She held up her wrist to display the watch Clarence had given her for her twenty-eighth birthday—a Timex whose face was emblazoned with the likeness of the Or­ange Blossom Inn, not the finest watch she had ever owned, far from it, but the best because it had been given to her out of love.

Suddenly she stood outside of the gift shop, looking back through the glass doors into Peggy Sue’s smiling, wrinkled face, which was bracketed by a revolving rack of Branson, Missouri, postcards and another of plastic key chains.

“Careful ‘round them corners, hon!” Peggy Sue shouted.

No chance of taking any corners on two wheels. Not in the Ford she had picked up for a whopping thousand bucks before settling into bright lights, big city Branson— Live Entertainment Capital of the World.

Holly pumped the accelerator three times before the Taurus started. It humped its way out onto the highway, hesitated, gulping for gas like an animal gasping in death throes.

Holly struggled to open her eyes. Something had awak­ened her. She turned her head and looked at the glowing bedside lamp. She’d fallen asleep before turning it off.

The phone rang. She glanced at the bedside clock. Two A.M.

Few people had her number—just those she had worked with after arriving in Branson six months before. She thought of Captain Fred and his bad heart, and the fear that something had happened to him since she had left her birthday party hours ago, or Peggy Sue whose diabetes too often sent her to the hospital in a near coma.

She slipped from the bed and hurried to the phone, rubbing her eyes, and froze as she looked down at the caller ID: out of area.

Only one person outside of Branson had her phone number, and she had been cautioned never to call Holly unless there was an emergency. Cautiously, she lifted the receiver to her ear. Too late. Whoever called had hung up.

Releasing her breath, Holly gently replaced the re­ceiver. A wrong number perhaps. Sure. That was it.

She glanced around the dimly lit apartment. Sofa, chair, and formica dining set provided by Lonesome Dove Apartments, as was the fridge and the bedroom suite. She preferred it that way. No ties. If she needed to up and leave again at short notice, she needn’t worry about mov­ing anything but a few pots and pans, linens, and clothes. All could fit neatly in the backseat of the Taurus.

The kitchen was a narrow rectangular jut off the dining area. Standing on the kitchen threshold, she dug a ciga­rette out of the package she retrieved from the countertop and lit it with a disposable lighter advertising Owen’s Theater, famous for their celebrity impersonators of Elvis and Liberace.

Taking a deep drag from the Slim, she allowed her gaze to shift around the small room, lit only by the night-light she had plugged into a socket over the stove.

She wasn’t much of a decorator, but had made the room as homey as possible, a few culinary gadgets hanging from plastic hooks on the walls, a wire basket of onions, another of ceramic eggs dangling from the ceiling.

She was so damn proud of the cozy apartment—the first place she had allowed herself to call home for more than a few weeks. Branson, Disney World of the retired set, had become a refuge where she could disappear from the ghosts of her past. No reminders here of the bad old days, and of the mistakes she had made with her life. They only existed in her nightmares.

Take a deep breath, she told herself. It had only been a wrong number. She was absolutely sure of it.

Holly opened the fridge and extracted a Fuzzy Navel Cooler, flung the screw cap in the general vicinity of the overflowing garbage can, and returned to the living room.

Her stomach hurt, as it always did when she allowed her overactive imagination to get the better of her. Which wasn’t often—at least not as often as she used to. Her long hours of selling Mel Tillis key chains kept her mind off of too many what-ifs. Still, the occasional cataclysm did manage to worm its way into her thoughts when she let her guard down. Like now.

She drank deeply of the Fuzzy Navel, then smoked again, and stared at the phone. She could hear her Blos­som Inn Timex ticking in the quiet.

She crushed out her cigarette and poured the remaining drink down the drain, returned to the bedroom, and climbed into bed. She took a deep breath and told herself again it had been a wrong number. Nothing to worry about. Life was good, right? No memories allowed. Not today.

Holly flipped off the light and nestled down, focused her thoughts on her plans for tomorrow—her day off. Once a week she volunteered at a local church’s Mother’s Day Out. She relished every second of the children’s com­pany. Drooling babies and precocious tots. Their inno­cence somehow purified her.

Her heavy lids drifted closed.

She lit a cigarette as an odd, gray haze enveloped her. As she drove down Highway 76, the Vegaslike marquees of the theaters formed halos of muted colors that melted like streams of watercolor into fog. A niggling of confu­sion made her dizzy and, for a moment, it seemed the car was floating. Balloons surrounded her, drifting like air­borne bubbles around her head.

She turned on the radio and a familiar voice boomed out at her. “This is KRLA Radio, New Orleans. Shana, baby, you can run and you can hide, but eventually we’re going to find you. Dr. Yah Yah is going to find you and when he does—”

The stations changed as if by magic, racing from one to another, a cacophony of country western, classical, and jazz until it settled on one that blasted loudly enough to make Holly grab her ears.

“And when he does, Shana, baby, he’s going to make you very sorry, sorry, sorry. “

She turned off the radio and clutched the steering wheel, her heart pounding in her ears and the balloons moving rapidly around her, thumping against the wind­shield so she couldn’t see. They glowed with a red, puls­ing heat. She thrust her cigarette at them, popping each one, but no sooner did they explode than they were re­placed with others, each one stenciled with the name Dr. Yah Yah.

Jumping from the car, she found herself in the parking lot of the Lonesome Dove Apartments. As she sprinted up the three flights of wrought iron stairs, she heard a phone ring and froze.

Suddenly she stood in her living room, cautiously lifting the receiver to her ear.

“You can run and you can hide, but Dr. Yah Yah is gonna get you, baby.”

A sound came from behind her and she spun around, a scream working up her throat.

Holly sat up in bed, gasping for breath, her gaze flash­ing around her small bedroom, to the clutch of helium balloons drifting along the ceiling. They didn’t glow, just shifted from the gusts of air rushing from the vent near the ceiling.

A dream. Just a dream—a nightmare. And the phone call had simply been a wrong number. No need to panic. No point in allowing in all the old fear. She had locked that away since settling into Branson. Still...

Leaving the bed, she crossed to the closet door and slid it open, stooped, and studied the pair of Samsonite suit­cases partially visible behind her measly grouping of dresses and an impressive collection of different-colored wigs. The cases were there, all right, calling to her. Just say the word, girlfriend, and we are out of here.

Paranoia was back. It seeped from her pores in big drops of sweat that beaded over her lip and between her breasts. It crawled over her scalp and slid down her spine like cold fingers.

She slammed the closet door and hastened to the bath­room, hit the light that exploded through the tiny room from a humming, flickering fixture over the sink. She bent over the sink and turned on the water. Splashed her face. Took a fortifying breath. Finally, she lifted her head and focused on her reflection in the mirror. Her blue eyes were wide and frightened. Her long hair fell in black waves around her unnaturally pale face. “Get a grip, Holly, or you’re going to lose it.”

No, she wasn’t going to lose it. Not again. She’d worked too hard these last few months to put all that behind her.

Almost desperately, she thrust her fingers through her hair, black as spades with a touch of natural curl that became a bit too wild to manage in the humidity of New Orleans. Once, while she was living in Charleston, soon after leaving New Orleans, she had considered cutting it. But a man named Randy, whom she had dated briefly, had convinced her against it. Thank God. She could cut off her hair, disguise herself in her many wigs, but if Dr. Yah Yah wanted to find her, he would find her.

And she would be a dead woman.

The phone rang.

It rang again.

Holly slowly turned for the door. She had the feeling that she was still asleep, that this was yet another twist of her nightmare. She had a disembodied sensation of float­ing out of the bedroom into the living room where light from the porch lamp spilled through the open drapes. A collection of moths and June bugs, buzzing as loudly as the bathroom bulb behind her, swarmed around the yellow porch light and slammed with kamikaze determination against the window.

Again.

She moved to the phone: out of area.

Hand trembling, she picked up the receiver, breath caught in her lungs, and lifted it to her ear.

“Shana, is that you?” came the weak, quivering female voice.

She closed her eyes, felt the room begin a slow spin that made her wobble from side to side.

“Shana,” came the urgent, horrified whisper, barely au­dible in her suddenly short-circuiting brain. “He’s back. Oh, God, Shana ... the monster is back.”

2

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

J.D. Damascus had one hell of a hangover.

Not that such an occurrence was unusual. Hell, no. Since his thirty-third birthday, seventy-five percent of his time was spent bumping around in a fog of extreme head pain.

Therefore, the ache stabbing through his temples at the moment was nothing new or unexpected.

Wearing dark-tinted Ray Bans to diffuse the sunlight from his throbbing eyes, J.D. slouched on a bench under a sprawling oak tree, legs outstretched, left ankle hooked over the right, and watched the group of little girls dash like frolicking puppies over the well-manicured lawn, bat­ting balloons emblazoned with happy birthday amber!

J.D. grinned.

“John, I’m so glad you could make it.”

Only one person, besides his mother, called him John.

Sliding the Ray Bans down his nose, J.D. looked over the glasses at his sister-in-law. Beverly Damascus, former Miss Louisiana, smiled and handed him a paper plate heaped with pink and-white birthday cake. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, darlin’. You know that.”

She smiled and sat down beside him. Her scent stirred the hot, still, summer air: Estee Lauder’s Pleasures. He should know. He’d bought it for her at Christmas.

“The kids are thrilled, of course. First thing Amber asked this morning was if her Uncle J.D. would be here.” Beverly looked into his eyes. “I told her it depended on your schedule.”

He put aside his drink and dug into the cake with a pink plastic fork. “My nine o’clock never showed. Wasn’t a problem.”

“I’ll warn you; Patrick is going to hit you up again about coaching his soccer team.” He nodded and ate.

She glanced down at the glass of Smirnoff. “Would you like some coffee?”

“No thanks. Too early in the day.” He winked at her.

She frowned and brushed a tendril of hair back from her brow. She didn’t even have the good grace to perspire in the damned suffocating heat and humidity. Beverly Sin­clare Damascus always looked as cool as an ice sculpture. Which is what made her the perfect politician’s wife. Fires could be raging out of control in the furnace, but damned if she would show it—except in her eyes. She had the kind of eyes that, if a man had any heart about him at all, would turn him inside out with a solitary blink.

“You don’t look so good, John.”

“I’ve felt better.”

“That drink isn’t going to help your ulcers,” she pointed out gently but sternly, or as sternly as the former Miss Louisiana ever spoke. In all the years he had known her— since the days they attended Tulane together—he had never heard her raise her voice, even to her children, in the slightest irritated manner.

Not that she didn’t have backbone. God, no. He sus­pected she had a spine as dense as a steel girder. Must have to have survived the last eighteen years of marriage to his brother, Eric—God’s gift to government.

He didn’t want to discuss his ulcers at the moment, though they were hurting like hell.

“You look tired,” he said, changing the subject. “Ev­erything okay?”

She sank back into the bench and crossed her long, denim-clad legs—legs that were still deserving of mini­skirts and string bikinis, as was her body. He was certain she didn’t weigh a pound more than she had when they were friends their junior year at Tulane. Her only signs of aging were the faintest hint of crow’s feet at her eyes and a sprinkling of gray in her short brown hair.

Finally, she shook her head, and for a moment appeared to work up her courage. When her voice finally came, it was breathy with emotion.

“No, I’m not okay. It’s Patrick. I just don’t know what to do with him anymore. It’s like I don’t even know my own son any longer. He’s just so... angry all the time. He stays holed up in his room at night. That’s not like him, John. We’ve always been so close.” She took a shaky breath. “I even caught him smoking the other night.”

“Did you kick his butt?” He grinned.

She didn’t, just turned her big green eyes, pooling with tears, to his.

“Hey.” He put his hand on her shoulder, a mistake, he realized, but too late. She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, gripping it fiercely, and laid her cheek against his hand. He swallowed. “Kids are going to experiment, Bev­erly. He’s sixteen years old. Think hormones.”

“First it’s cigarettes, then it’s booze, then drugs.” She nuzzled his hand, lifted her head, and swiped a tear from her cheek. “It gets worse. I got a call from the school. Seems he got into an altercation with his teacher. She caught him cheating on a test. And do you know what he said to her? ‘Fuck you. Expel me and my dad will get you fired.’” She gave a dry laugh and shook her head. “The sorry thing is, he’s probably right.”

“Have you talked to Eric about it?”

“You’re joking. I haven’t had five minutes alone with your brother since the Senate recessed, not since Jack an­nounced his bid for the presidency. They’re holed up in the house now—he and Jack and your father. They should be out here. It’s Amber’s birthday, for God’s sake.”

“Would you like for me to talk to Patrick?”

“Would you? Oh, John, that would be great. You know how much he loves you. Maybe coming from you—”

“It’s not a problem.”

“It’s that—Eric is so involved—”

“I understand. No problem, really.”

“He so desperately needs a father figure now.” She froze and her face blanched of color. “Oh God, John. I’m so sorry. God, I’m so sorry. What a stupid choice of words.”

He put down the plate of cake. “Forget it. You’re right. He does need a father figure.”

She reached out and touched his cheek with her trem­bling fingertips. “I’m so stupid sometimes. Yesterday was Lisa’s birthday—”

“I really don’t want to talk about it.”

He nudged the Ray Bans up to his eyes and watched Amber take a ballerinalike twirl on her tiptoes. “I’ll have a word with Eric before I go. Tell Patrick I’ll give him a call tomorrow night. Maybe we’ll catch a movie or some­thing.”

She touched him again, her fingertip lightly brushing against his earlobe. “John—”

J.D. stood and moved up the brick walkway, through the hot August sun that diffused the color of the flowers flourishing in the well-tended beds along the path. Last spring, the house and gardens had been featured in South­ern Living magazine as one of the finest restored land­marks south of the Mason-Dixon line, all thanks to Beverly, of course, and her fine eye and great appreciation for historical detail. Eric wouldn’t know the difference between an azalea and a Venus’s-flytrap.

He dug two Tums from his jeans pocket and popped them into his mouth. Entering the house through the back French doors, he arrived in the den just as Eric, his father, and Jack Strong, the Democrats’ brightest hope for the presidency, filed into the room, their expressions buoyant and their eyes burning, as always, with steely ambition.

Eric glanced at J.D. and smirked. “You look like hell.”

“Screw you.” He glanced at his father. “Hello, Dad.”

Charles Damascus, former Governor, ignored him and proceeded to the door where he paused and looked around at Senator Strong. “Golf tomorrow. Seven sharp.”

Jack Strong flashed Charles his best John Kennedy smile and gave him a thumbs-up.

J.D. moved to the French doors and watched his father walk down the path toward Beverly, who remained on the bench just as he had left her.

“Hello to you too, son. How nice to see you. How are you, by the way? I’m fine, Dad. Terrific, son, how would you like to join us in a round of golf in the morning? Love to. Great. Seven sharp. Wonderful. See you then. My best to Mom.” He gave a thumbs-up and turned back to his brother. “Son of a bitch can kiss my ass.”

While the senator made himself comfortable in a chair, helping himself to Eric’s stash of expensive and illegal Cuban cigars, Eric planted himself on the edge of his au­thentic Louis XVI desk and crossed his arms, waiting.

“We need to talk,” J.D. said.

“Busy.”

“So I gather. It’s important.”

“Make it quick.”

“This is private.”

“You need money, right?”

“Since when have I ever come to you for money?”

“Maybe if you’d rope in a better clientele than hookers and whiplash victims, you wouldn’t be on the verge of rolling belly up.” He looked over his shoulder at Jack. “Right, Senator?”

Senator Strong smiled around his cigar. “I’m staying out of this. Wouldn’t want to lose the vote of one of my constituents, after all.”

J.D. gave a sharp laugh. “I wouldn’t vote for you if you were the only candidate on the ballot. I rank your ethics just one rung above Sammy ‘The Bull’ Gravanno.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed and his bright smile dimmed. “Careful, J.D. Although I highly respect your daddy, I wouldn’t hesitate a minute in pulling a few strings to get your law license rescinded. Such as it is.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jack shrugged and took a deep drag on his cigar before replying. “You ain’t been worth a damn as an attorney since you left the D.A.’s office. Fact is, boy, you’re noth­ing more than a laughingstock anymore. A sleazy ambu­lance chaser whose clients are nothing more than a lot of derelicts and prostitutes. It’s no wonder your daddy has disowned you.”

“You son of a—”

“Here now.” Eric placed himself between J.D. and the senator. “If you’ll excuse us, Jack, my brother and I will just step into my office for a few minutes.”

Eric took a hard, warning hold on J.D.’s arm and ush­ered him out of the room, into his office, and slammed the door. His face beet red, he said, “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing coming to my house and in­sulting my guest?”

“In case you aren’t aware, it’s Amber’s birthday.”

“And your point is?”

“I think your wife would appreciate a few minutes of your time.”

Eric walked to the window and looked out at his wife. “I saw the two of you talking. If I was a suspicious man, I might believe you had a thing going on.”

“Patrick is having problems.”

He turned away from the window. “Is that so?”

“He needs his father.”

“I wasn’t aware that you had, between your vodka binges, gotten your shrink’s shingle.”

Trying hard to rein back his temper wasn’t easy—just ask the judge he’d slugged when the jury had cleared Marcus DiAngelo, of the Lucky Lady, of gambling cor­ruption. He had never slugged his brother, but he was as close to it in that moment as he was ever going to be.

His hands fisted, he stared into his brother’s eyes. Eric was a chip off the old block, no doubt about it. If cloning human beings had existed forty years ago, J.D. would hap­pily wager that Eric had been spawned in a petri dish. The amount of compassion Eric and their father had squirming around in their hearts would fit on the tip of a straight pin.

“There’s no use in talking to you,” J.D. said. “There never is.”

As he turned for the door, Eric slammed one hand down on J.D.’s shoulder. “I’ll forgive you for coming into my house and insulting my friend. And I really don’t care what you think about Daddy. But you keep your sancti­monious nose out of my family life. My kids are none of your business, J.D. And neither is my wife.” Eric jammed one finger into J.D.’s breastbone and finished, “You best remember that if you know what’s good for you.”

It was probably a mistake coming here, consid­ering his mood. But often, the serenity of the place brought him as much peace as it did heartache. And it was definitely preferable to drowning himself in the Smir­noff bottle he had tucked away in the Mustang’s glove compartment. His ulcers simply wouldn’t tolerate it at the moment, and he was out of Tums.

J.D. parked the classic 1966 fire-engine red Mustang convertible in the shade of the three-hundred-year-old oak trees, collected the red and blue balloons by their dangling strings, and exited the car.

No matter how hot the temperature soared, the air was always cool here; no traffic noise, screaming sirens, or rap music blasting from jacked-up pickup trucks driven by the newest generation of juvenile delinquents.

Here, the air was still and fragranced by jasmine, the grass glossy green under the sunlight and emerald black beneath the wide, spreading limbs of the ancient oaks. As he walked down the manicured, winding path, the only sound was the gentle bump bump of the balloons dancing above his head. A pair of squirrels dashed across this path, scratched their way up a tree, and chattered at him from their perch overhead. An egret lifted from a lily-pad-covered pond, wings popping before it glided in a circle above the trees and settled somewhere over the line of mausoleums in the distance.

Would this ever get any easier?

He didn’t think so.

There were three graves side by side—smoke gray granite, highly polished, their bases surrounded by sprays of iris and daffodils. They weren’t blooming at the mo­ment—only during spring—but the tall, green growths were well tended, as was the lush, broad-blade Saint Au­gustine grass.

J.D. sat on a bench, propped his elbows on his knees, and looked from one name to the other.

William Damascus 1992-1999

Laura Damascus 1966-1999

Lisa Damascus 1994-1999

He tried to take a breath. It wouldn’t come.

“Hi, funny face.” He smiled at Lisa’s headstone. “Sorry I didn’t make it out yesterday. I was” —drunk and con­templating suicide— “busy. Aunt Beverly sends her love. She sent balloons. It was Amber’s birthday today. Cute kid. Looks just like you, pigtails and all.”

He straightened and closed his burning eyes. His throat convulsed and his stomach responded with a hot spear of pain that made a groan swell in his chest. The heat of the day pressed down on him, making his body break out in sweat. Christ, he was going to be sick.

The tremors were there, crawling along his arms and stinging like fire ants. No point in willing them away. Since the dawn of August 10, 1999, they had become as natural to him as breathing, surging up from the pit of his stomach twice a day, first thing in the morning and last thing at night before he fell into his waiting nightmares. They came, too, when he visited Mother of Grace Cemetery, only here, the tremors enlisted not just over­whelming grief but fury—cold, mind-obsessing hate. The kind that whispered revenge. The sort that impelled a nor­mally rational man to empty a loaded semiautomatic into the chest of a murderer, which he fully intended to do.

The day would come. Oh yeah. Because no matter that his ex-best friend. Jerry Costos. former District Attorney, had convinced a jury that Angel Gonzalez was a cold­blooded serial killer, J.D. didn’t buy it. He was going to find the son of a bitch who’d slaughtered his children, and his wife, and he was going to blow his head off, and then—

The cell phone on his belt began to twitter, wrenching him from thoughts of vigilante murder and suicide. He fumbled for the phone, and swallowed twice to ensure his voice was steady enough to answer.

“Where the hell have you been?” shouted May Kraft in his ear. May was a sixty-year-old black woman with two perforated eardrums that made her mostly deaf. She’d worked as his secretary for the last two years, initially to work off her attorney’s fees for a contested divorce. But she had made herself indispensable and stayed on, lending a minimal amount of sanity and structure to his flounder­ing law practice, such as it was, according to Jack Strong.

“May, you’re shouting again.” He held the phone away from his ear. “You’re deaf, not me. Remember?”

“I done tracked down your nine o’clock no-show. Cherry what’s-her-name.”

“Brown,” he reminded her.

“Whatever. I done found her.”

“Yeah? What’s her excuse this time?”

“She’s dead.”

3

The police had barricaded the premises around Cherry Brown’s apartment located in the deep black heart of New Orleans’s red-light district, which flanked the Mis­sissippi River: one square mile of honky tonks, strip bars, and old warehouses that had, some thirty years before, been renovated into sleazy dance clubs, illegal backroom gambling establishments, and cheap apartments. Here, hookers sold their assets by the hour, and business was good. Not just for the girls, but for scumbag lawyers like himself.

J.D. was forced to park his Mustang a half block away, behind the string of patrol cars and an EMT unit, lights still flashing. The team of medics smoked as the ambu­lance radio squawked with conversation and static.

Uniformed cops lined up along the walls, conversing while they waited for the crime scene unit to do their thing. As J.D. ducked under the yellow tape, they made a move toward him, then stopped, their initial concern turning into recognition. He knew them all from his days as New Orleans’s top assistant district attorney—destined to replace Jerry Costos when he aspired to higher govern­mental ambitions. Too many times he had worked the crime scenes with them, dogging them for evidence. They had cursed him and revered him.

While they would have tackled any other intruder to the ground, they relaxed, Officer Michaels flashing him a grin as he said, “You can take the D.A. out of the office, but you can’t take the office out of the man, right, Da­mascus?”

“Right,” he said, wading through beer cans, cigarette butts, and discarded condoms.

Inside the apartment, the initial walk-through to ex­amine the scene for potential evidence had been com­pleted, as well as the photo snaps. The forensic investigators were already at work, the technicians care­fully isolating and securing possible evidence by bagging each individual item so it would not be contaminated or lost on the way to the laboratory.

The coroner stood back, arms crossed over his chest, sharing what J.D. assumed, from his ear-to-ear grin, was a humorous conversation with one of the detectives as­signed to the case. Though the detective’s back was to him, J.D. would have recognized that bald head and bull­dog neck anywhere: Detective Enoch P. Mallory.

J.D. turned his back to the conversing duo, slipped around a technician who was intent on logging in his ev­idence, and stopped short upon the sight of Cherry Brown’s body. Or what was left of it. Good Christ.

“Damascus!”

J.D. turned away from the corpse, vomit crawling up his throat, and came face-to-face with Mallory. He wasn’t certain which was more stomach-turning: the bloody mas­sacre on the bed or the investigator’s pan-faced, double-chinned countenance thrusting into his own face so closely the smell of Mallory’s breath, tainted with garlic and cigarettes, rushed over him in a noxious wave.

“Mind telling me what the hell you’re doing in here?” Mallory growled.

“My client,” he managed.

“Was your client. In case you ain’t noticed, she’s dead and you’re trespassing on a crime scene. Need I remind you that you’re not an A.D.A. anymore?”

He couldn’t argue the point, so he said nothing, not that he could if he wanted to.

Mallory looked away and planted his fists on his hips. The action distorted his suit coat, exposing his big belly and the .38 he had tucked into his shoulder holster. Mas­sive sweat stains splotched his shirt and coat beneath his armpits. As he regarded Cherry Brown, his mouth worked from side to side.

“Offers a new meaning to giving head, don’t it?”

“You’re an ass, Mallory.” J.D. blinked the sweat from his eyes and moved for the door. He needed air. Fast.

The alley offered little respite. The fumes of sour beer and urine only exacerbated his need to puke. He made it as far as a garbage Dumpster before losing it. He heaved up the coffee he’d purchased on his way to Cherry’s. It was tinged with blood.

“I see your ulcers aren’t any better,” Mallory said be­hind him. “I had an ulcer once. As they eat into the mus­cles of the stomach or duodenal wall, blood vessels are damaged, which causes bleeding. Over a long period of time, a person may become anemic and feel weak, dizzy, or tired. You look damned anemic to me.”

J.D. fell back against the wall, face sweating. His gut felt as if it would incinerate at any moment. He dug into his pocket for his new supply of Tums.

“When did this happen?” he said between his teeth.

“Between midnight and eight this morning.”

“Who found her?”

“A friend. Calls herself Honey. Cherry was supposed to meet her for breakfast. She didn’t show and the gal came ‘round to check on her.”

“Where’s the friend?”

“With Stakouski. You know the drill. She’s pretty up­set.”

“I want to talk to her.”

Mallory glanced over his shoulder, then moved in closer. “Look, I can appreciate how this might look—”

“Save it. I don’t want to hear anymore of the pat bullshit I’ve been hearing for the last four years.”

“Leave it alone, J.D. The force doesn’t need any more crap out of you about Angel Gonzalez. I’m warning you—”

“The force can kiss my ass. Angel Gonzalez didn’t butcher my family or those prostitutes. The state fried the wrong man and we both know it. He was convicted on circumstantial evidence and had any judge besides Shanks been presiding, it would never have been allowed to hap­pen.”

“You’re just pissed at Shanks because he screwed your case with DiAngelo. Get over it. This homicide is nothing more than a copycat killing. It happens. If there weren’t maniacs roaming the streets, we’d be out of business.”

“Yeah?” J.D. gave a short, dry laugh that caused a fresh spear of pain to cut through him. “I guess we’ll see soon enough, won’t we?” He shoved by Mallory and moved up the alley.

“Get some help for those ulcers!” Mallory shouted.

Although the sweltering night air was rife with fear and tension—not to mention suspicion over every sex-starved male who cruised slowly by in search of com­panionship—J.D. had no problem locating Honey. Most of the hookers prowling the district at midnight had been his clients at one time or another, and they were fairly certain he wasn’t capable of decapitating and eviscerating a woman whether he approved of her morals or not.

Honey occupied an apartment on the second floor of a renovated warehouse that had, at the turn of the twentieth century, been the Jamieson Cottonseed Oil Mill. However, a devastating fire on June 23, 1925, had consumed one-half of the warehouse district along the river, and the ex­tent of rebuilding the Jamieson Mill had extended only to its redbrick walls when the owner declared bankruptcy and left the warehouse to fall back into decay.

Marcus DiAngelo’s father, Mitchell, had purchased the properties and rebuilt. Marcus had inherited it all upon his father’s untimely death, which had shown evidence of a mob hit. But that, too, had been swept under the city’s ever-spreading carpet of See No Evil.

Honey had greasy platinum-blond hair with black roots, breast implants that must have set her pimp back a bundle, and tattoos over her arms and down the outside of her legs. Her nails were painted black, the polish peeling off in chips. Each ear was studded with five dangling bobs and on each finger was a silver ring, the kind the tourists bought at a booth in the market. They were staining her skin green.

She looked fifty, but J.D. suspected she was more like thirty. The business was hard on the girls ... so were the drugs she was apparently shooting. The insides of her arms were scarred with tracks, and her nose looked as if it had been scoured with sand paper. However, at the mo­ment, she appeared to be semilucid, if not totally trau­matized over Cherry’s demise. She paced her apartment, pulling at her hair one minute and crying the next.

As a defense attorney, J.D. knew from experience that before he could hope to secure the kind of information that he needed, a relationship of trust had to be developed. Patience was necessary. Except he wasn’t feeling very patient at the moment. What little patience he held on to these days had vaporized the instant he’d seen a headless Cherry Brown laid open like a gutted pig.

“I already told the cops all this. I don’t want to talk about it again.”

“I understand.”

“It was horrible.” She covered her face and whimpered.

“I understand.”

“He cut off her head!”

She was losing it. Time to back off a little. Think sym­pathy.

He walked to her and took her in his arms. “It’s okay. Calm down, sweetheart.” She shook against him and he stroked her hair. Her tears bled through his T-shirt, warm against his skin. “Take a breath and try to relax.”

She gulped several deep breaths and sagged against him.

“We’ll talk when you’re ready.” He scoped the apart­ment, noting the many voodoo emblems hanging from the walls—gris-gris against evil.

“Cherry was a really sweet girl, you know? I mean, she didn’t deserve this.”

“No one does.”

“She was only twenty-one. And special. Real special.”

“Have you any idea who her midnight john was?”

She pulled away and began pacing again. “That’s the thing. She wasn’t supposed to work last night. She hadn’t worked all week.” Wringing her hands, she turned to face him. Black mascara had melted around her brown eyes and streaked her right cheek. “She wanted out of the busi­ness. Wanted to move home, back to California. The man was really pissed about it.”

She needn’t explain who “the man” was to J.D. The simple thought of Tyron Johnson encouraged fresh pain to coil in his gut, along with hatred, not to mention sus­picion that made his heart slam against his ribs.

Tyron controlled girls in three states, but made his home in New Orleans. He lived in the penthouse suite of the Lucky Lady Casino—ten thousand a month including all the champagne he could drink and all the caviar he could eat. He had a nuclear temper and his girls paid the price big-time for crossing him.

During his four years with the District Attorney’s of­fice, J.D. had attempted to bury him in prison several times for assault with deadly intent and drug-related charges. In each case, the girl he had carved up during one of his tantrums had refused to testify, or he’d gotten off on some technicality. Case closed. Again and again and again. The last time they had met, that being on the courthouse steps on a beautiful June morning, 1999, Ty­ron had declared in front of eight witnesses that J.D. was going to live to regret his harassment. Two months later, his wife and children had been murdered.

Tyron had had an alibi for the time of the murders. Marcus DiAngelo.

“It’s starting again,” Honey said. “Just like before. They were wrong, weren’t they? About that Gonzalez creep. He wasn’t the killer at all.”

“It’s too early to jump to those conclusions.” Christ, old habits were hard to break. He was sounding like Mal­lory, but no point in exacerbating the woman’s panic. Not yet. “Could be some freak copycat. One murder is a long way from a serial killing.”

She stopped pacing and turned to face him. “She’s not the first.”

“What the hell are you saying?”

“You wouldn’t have heard about it. The state don’t want the public to know it put an innocent man to death.”

*     *     *

Patrick Damascus, sixteen and a half, going on thirty, or so his mother declared, sat at his desk crowded with schoolbooks and assignment sheets that he had not so much as glanced at, though the hour was growing late. He hated the “alternative school year” that came with the private school his mother had insisted he attend. It was supposed to provide him a better education, because he was “gifted” and public schools couldn’t afford him the opportunity to utilize his genius.

That was a lot of crappola. She simply didn’t want him hanging with normal kids because, according to her, they were a bad influence. That, too, was a lot of crappola. The kids attending St. Elizabeth’s Boys’ School were the worst. Those who weren’t geeks were freaks, but there wasn’t any reasoning with her. Once she set her mind to something, there was no changing it.

Opening the bottom drawer of his desk, he dug deep beneath several spiral notebooks labeled geometry sucks the big one and english lit is for fags, with­drew a magazine, and carefully, as if it would detonate at any moment, placed it on his desk. He arranged the lamp closer, adjusting the shade so it cast a spotlight on the glossy, colored photographs of naked couples.

Certainly, he was well aware of the facts of life, birds and bees and all those cliched stupidities adults termed “fucking.” But the photos presented here were highly en­lightening, in short, leaving nothing to the imagination. His curiosity of the female anatomy had been assuaged within the covers of this encyclopedia of smut. Couples, threesomes, men and women, women and women, men and men emblazoned the photos with a boldness that made a knot form in his stomach and a heat center in his groin that flushed his entire body, not just with the stir­rings of his awakening hormones, but with an anger that made him grit his teeth so hard his jaw hurt.

So engrossed was he at the moment, he didn’t hear his bedroom door open. It wasn’t until he heard his mother’s horrified gasp that he realized he had been caught with the goods.

“Oh my God.”

He stiffened.

As his mother snatched the magazine from the desk, Patrick leaped from the chair and spun around to face her.

“Oh my God,” she repeated, her face blanched of color and her eyes wide with horror as she stared at the pho­tographs in her shaking hands. “What in God’s name—”

“What happened to knocking?” he shouted, embarrass­ment turning his face red.

“Where did you get this trash?”

He glared at her, a gazillion excuses scrambling in his brain.

“Answer me, Patrick. Where did you get—”

“None of your business,” he finally managed, unable to come up with anything more appropriate at the moment. It was a kid’s right of birth to turn the tables on his parents when caught with his pants down, so to speak. To ac­knowledge one’s own guilt went against the laws of na­ture.

“I beg your pardon? None of my business? I find my son with a pornographic magazine and it’s none of my business?”

“What’s it matter? I got it, okay?” He shoved by her and walked to his bed, flopped onto his back, and stared at the ceiling. Genius or not, there were times when play­ing stupid was essential to pubescent survival. “What’s the big deal, anyhow?”

She sank into the chair. “The big deal is, you’re sixteen years old—”

“Sixteen and a half.”

“You’ve got no business looking at this kind of per­version.”

He might have continued the argument had his mother’s voice not begun to tremble. She obviously was on the verge of crying, and if anything could stop him cold and fill him up with raw, ragged, and bloody regret, it was his mom crying. Anger and rebelliousness took a backseat to guilt when it came to disappointing his mother. And al­though he seemed to be doing that a lot these days, he just couldn’t help himself. Just like he couldn’t help not destroying the piece of smut that intrigued him as much as infuriated him.

His mother rolled the magazine into a tube while her gaze continued to bore a hole into him. He wondered if this would be the impetus for her to finally lose control and start yelling like most parents when they got pissed at their kids. Often he listened to his friend’s tales of parental terror with envy. They were normal, and normal intrigued him. Life in the Damascus household had never been normal.

“I just don’t know what to do with you anymore,” she said.

He watched a model of a stealth fighter slowly rotate above him.

“What’s happened to us, Patrick? We used to be so close. You used to talk to me.”

“Guess I don’t have anything to say.”

“Why are you so angry? What have I done?”

Come into my room without knocking, for one.

“First I get this call from the principal at your school, now this.” She tapped the tube on the desk. “I suppose I should speak to your father—”

“He won’t give a damn. Why bother?”

“Stop cursing.”

“Everyone curses. Even the geeks. What’s the big deal?”

“Because you’re only—”

“Sixteen. God, why can’t I be eighteen? Then I could get the hell out of here.” He rolled to his side, offering his mother his back. “It sucks here. I hate it. I want to go live with Uncle J.D. He’s cool.”

His mother crossed the room and sat on the bed beside him. She touched his shoulder.

“J.D. comes to my soccer games,” he continued. “We watch videos together when I’m at his place. He doesn’t treat me like I’m a stupid kid.”

“I’d miss you,” she said softly.

He rolled again to his back and focused on her eyes. “You could come, too. And Amber.”

She forced a smile. “Move in just like that, huh?”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m married to your father.”

“So get a divorce.” Her eyebrows lifted.

“Why not? You two don’t love each other. Not any­more.”

A deep red flush crept up her face. “You’re not denying it,” he pointed out. “Because it’s ridiculous.”

He gently placed his hand on her back, felt her stiffen. “It’s okay, Mom. I don’t blame you. He treats you like shit.”

Leaving the bed, she paced to the window and looked out. “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with my son. I can’t believe you would welcome a divorce—”

“You’d be happier. And so would I. Besides, Dad doesn’t deserve you.”

She turned again to face him. “Is that what all this anger is about? Your father?”

“I hate him.” There. He’d said it. Lightning didn’t bolt out of the sky and incinerate him.

“Patrick!”

“I do. I hate his guts. He doesn’t love you, and he doesn’t love me and Amber.”

“That’s not true.”

“He’s a creep and I wish he was dead.”

“That’s enough. I won’t have you talk like that about your father.”

“If you don’t divorce him, I’m going to run away from home. I’ll move in with Uncle J.D. whether you like it or not.”

“I won’t listen to any more of this nonsense.” As she always did when she found herself unable to cope with the momentary crisis, his mother moved toward the door, gripping the porno tube so tightly in her hand it bent in the middle.

“Mom,” he said as she reached the door. She paused and looked back, her eyes so full of anguish he felt punched in the stomach. “Please ... don’t tell Dad about the magazine.” He swallowed. “Please.”

She left the room, closing the door behind her.

He felt certain that she wouldn’t tattle. She never did. Because she knew as well as he did that bad news re­garding Eric Damascus’s kids would float in one ear and out the other. Normally, Patrick wouldn’t have bothered with the request to keep this type of perverted news from Louisiana’s distinguished legislative director, but this was an exception. This shocking revelation would have caused consequences he wasn’t ready to deal with at the moment. Not yet. In time, but not now.

He locked his door. Something he should have done before pulling out the porno magazine, but he wasn’t ac­customed to needing to. His mother had always respected his privacy, but lately she’d been slipping. Since she’d caught him smoking, it seemed he was always finding her popping up out of nowhere.

He retrieved his portable disc player with earphones from his bookshelf, along with his favorite CD—both of which J.D. had given him the last time they’d gone out together. He prized it as highly as the soccer ball, auto­graphed by David Beckham, that J.D. had given him last Christmas.

Crawling under his bed, he extracted his hidden stash of cigarettes and matches the freak Raymond Dillworth had provided him at school. Raymond had offered him weed sprinkled with crack as well, but he was genius enough to know that if he was caught with a juice joint, his mom wouldn’t have been just rattled to tears, she would have gone apoplectic. Couldn’t have Senator Strong’s legislative director having a son who walked around baked. Might cost the asshole a vote or two.

Easing up his bedroom window, Patrick crawled out on the roof, carefully working his way along the gable until he settled down beside the chimney. Then he leaned back, positioned the headphones on his ears, and hit the play button before lighting up his Marlboro Light. As Credence Clearwater Revival exploded against his eardrums singing about a bad moon rising and trouble being on the way, he gazed at the sky, inhaled deeply from the cigarette, and studied the moon overhead.

There was definitely trouble on the way, he thought. It was only a matter of time.

4

The nights were always the worst, when memories clawed their way to the forefront of his mind and arranged themselves like a slide show in chronological order.

Laura on their wedding day dressed in a beige suit, loose-fitting to hide her pregnancy, their vows spoken to a justice of the peace while Vegas lights flashed on and off against the fake chapel windows.

His holding her hand as she gave birth to their son six months later. He’d kissed her and whispered, “We’re go­ing to make it. Things will only get better now.”

He’d wanted to believe it, if for no other reason than to spite his father, the honorable mayor of New Orleans at that time, who felt J.D., his shining hope for the future, was throwing his life away by marrying the daughter of a used car salesman.

No, he hadn’t been in love with Laura any more than she had been in love with him. But neither of them be­lieved in abortion, and both believed that, eventually, they could come to love one another, for the sake of the child, if nothing else.

For a while, the hope had sparkled like new diamonds. William Damascus had been a dream child, healthy, happy, a bundle of pleasure that filled J.D. with enough love that he didn’t miss the void of affection he shared with his wife. But, little by little, the glimmer had eroded as he was forced, thanks to his father cutting him off financially, to work a night job in order to pay his way through his last year of law school.

The pressures of school and mounting bills had cor­rupted their home life. There had been talk of divorce. But again, the thought of his father’s “I told you so” had been the impetus to hang in there. He had been certain, once he passed the bar and landed the A.D.A.’s position, that he and Laura could start fresh. William was every­thing to him. The idea of weekend visiting privileges seemed intolerable.

Yet, despite the immense love he had felt for his son, he found himself burying himself more deeply in his ca­reer. Avoidance, a marriage counselor had termed it. A failure to communicate. If he would be more attentive to his affection-deprived wife, perhaps she wouldn’t need to drown her sorrows in American Express Platinum cards and daily jaunts through the Neiman Marcus catalogues. J.D. had snidely remarked that if she backed off the Am Ex and Neiman Marcus catalogues, perhaps he wouldn’t have to put in twenty hours a week of overtime.

It hadn’t helped that, thanks to hourly threats from the criminal element, he was forced to start wearing a gun.

In a space of two short years he had become The Man Most Likely to Be Snuffed.

The prediction had almost come to fruition when some­one unloaded a shotgun through his bedroom window. In order to keep Laura from collecting Billy and hightailing it to her parents in Milwaukee, he had taken a leave of absence to try to save their marriage. They’d rented a condo in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and tried to revive their nonexistent love for one another—romantic walks on the beach in the moonlight, champagne and candlelight, and sex like horny teenagers. Two weeks later, they had driven away from the love nest with the absolute certainty that they had no future together. Three weeks later, Laura had informed him she was pregnant. So much for con­doms.

He couldn’t imagine that he could ever love another child as much as he loved Billy. Not possible. But the moment he held Lisa in his arms, he had been gut-punched, brought to his knees by her cherubic face, awash with such heartrending responsibility and protectiveness, he had been willing to sell his soul to the devil to keep the marriage together. He cut back his workload, lived for the moment when he could sprawl on the floor and allow the children to jump on his belly as if he were a tram­poline. Never mind that he and Laura existed in an emo­tional vacuum where they rarely spoke and slept in separate bedrooms. The love he felt for his children was his cup that runneth over.

Lisa with her wispy, blond pigtails bouncing around her shoulders as she chased butterflies in the park.

Billy on the first day of school looking back over his shoulder, eyes full of tears, as J.D. stood on the sidewalk with his hands crammed in his pockets and a knot the size of a goose egg in his throat.

Birthday parties, tooth fairies, Santa Claus.

Then they were gone.

As J.D. lay in the dark in his bed, the nearby buzz fan doing little to assuage the heat that made his naked body sweat, he stared at the ceiling that faintly reflected the distant neon of the Lucky Lady Casino. Occasionally, he reached for his glass of Pepto-Bismol and milk, a mixture that he had grown accustomed to over the last few years. The radio in his room played softly. A classical station that often soothed him to sleep.

Tonight, however, sleep was elusive. Every time he closed his eyes, the image of Cherry Brown was right there in all its gory detail... superimposed over those of his family.

He’d spent three days in Shreveport, business that had kept him out of town longer than anticipated. He had spo­ken to Laura Thursday night, late, to let her know that he would be home Friday afternoon. She had been testier than usual. They had argued and she had refused to let him speak to Billy and Lisa—already in bed, she had lied, though he could hear them playing in the background.

Something in the way she had behaved had caused cau­tion and suspicion to niggle at him long after he’d hung up the phone. Something wasn’t right. Not that it ever was right between them, but that particular conversation had set his every instinct on edge. He hadn’t become a kick-ass A.D.A. without being able to sniff out the un­dercurrents of brewing trouble, and Laura’s nervous, evasive attitude had reeked of it.

He’d canceled his meetings for the next day and taken a late flight, arriving in New Orleans after midnight. In the airport, he had bought Lisa a doll and Billy a T-shirt.

He had arrived home to an empty house. Standing there with sweat running down his temples, the fear that she had left him at last, taking his children, rushed like acid through his blood.

At four in the morning, he had fallen into bed, ex­hausted from pacing the floor all night, repeatedly calling her cell phone and getting no response.

At six-thirty the doorbell had rung. He’d known, the moment he looked into the detectives’ faces, why they were there.

He’d held it together in the car, even walking down the long corridor to the morgue. Avoidance, again. There was always a chance that the bodies a jogger had discovered were not those of his family. Laura wasn’t a prostitute. No reason that the serial killer who was slaughtering pros­titutes would suddenly turn on a housewife and kids. They didn’t fit the victim profile.

He’d held it together until the medical examiner, Janice, Mallory’s wife, had pulled the sheet back to reveal Billy’s face.

After that, it had all been a blur. Like he was fighting his way out of a nightmare that wouldn’t end. First Billy, his throat cut from ear to ear, then Lisa, her blond pigtails soaked in blood. Then Laura. He’d identified her by the birthmark on her right hip, and, of course, the wedding ring on her finger.

Like the prostitutes who had been killed, they never found Laura’s head.

He couldn’t recall much of the following months. They were spent in a fog of tranquilizers and antidepressants. Downers to make him sleep without dreaming, uppers that allowed him to stumble through the day. He’d finally un­raveled before a judge and jury and half the New Orleans press corp. It hadn’t been pretty. Jerry Costos had tackled him to the floor, and he’d been wheeled out of the court­room strapped to a stretcher by men in white coats. So much for promising careers.

He’d withdrawn from life—family, friends—holed up in his empty house full of memories, surrounded by pho­tographs of his children. Six months after his breakdown, he’d been forced to move out of the house and file for bankruptcy. Only one thing had kept him from putting a bullet in his head. Anger and the need for revenge. It raged in him.

He had become a short fuse on a keg of dynamite, one fizzle and spark away from complete detonation. He was certain that Tyron Johnson had been his family’s killer and was convinced that their murders had not been con­nected with those of the hookers. The son of a bitch had actually sent flowers to the funerals, attached with a card: Have a happy life, asshole.

Angel Gonzalez had a sheet of priors as long as his arm, including child molestation and arrests for solicita­tion and assault on prostitutes. Swabs taken from the va­gina of the last murdered hooker had matched Gonzalez’s DNA. But when he heard Jerry Costos’s shitty, circum­stantial evidence, J.D. had known in his gut that Angel was innocent, a man at the wrong place at the wrong time—just as his family had been, according to the in­vestigators who wanted like hell to close the books on his wife’s and kids’ murders. It was one thing for prostitutes to be slaughtered. It was another for a mother and her kids to be murdered. Their deaths had sent panic through the city like a wildfire.

There was no doubt in his mind now that Angel Gon­zalez had not been the monster who had murdered his family—or the prostitutes who had undergone the most brutal slayings in Louisiana history.

The state had not prosecuted Gonzalez for all the crimes, only one of them, but that had been enough to get him the death penalty from a jury who had been shaken to tears during a trial the entire country had watched with morbid fascination. After all, as Governor Damascus had proclaimed, “You can kill a man only once. No point in bleeding the state’s budget any more than necessary.”

Never mind that three of the victims had been the gov­ernor’s daughter-in-law and two of his grandchildren.

With Gonzalez’s conviction, the case had been closed on his wife and kids, all tied up in a neat little package with a few grumbled words of sympathy from Jerry Cos­tos. Never mind that Laura’s, Billy’s, and Lisa’s deaths did not fit into the victim profile. His wife was not a prostitute and the children had not been decapitated—the killer had been kind enough to only slit their throats.

Honey, who had discovered Cherry Brown’s body, couldn’t have been more correct. If the public got wind that the state could have—had, in fact—executed the wrong man, there would be hell to pay. The repercussions would be felt all the way to the White House. The ad­vocates against the death penalty, NCADP in particular, would burn the state’s politicians on every cable network news station in the country.

Rolling over, he hit the replay button on the telephone answering machine beside his bed. The message had come in at eleven-thirty.

“John... it’s Beverly. I need to talk to you. Desper­ately. It’s Patrick again.” Pause. She cleared her throat. “I found him with ...” Pause. “I don’t want to talk about it on the phone. I need to see you as soon as possible. Call me. Please.”

As the machine kicked off, he left the bed, wandered to the kitchen nook, opened the fridge and extracted a Coors Light, then returned to the bed where he slid his hand between the mattress and box springs and withdrew his gun, a Beretta Model 92 9mm automatic boasting a fifteen-round magazine and weighing less than three pounds fully loaded. As he balanced it in his hand, he glanced down at the phone. The clock beside it glowed two forty-five in bright red numbers.

He walked to the open sliding glass doors, stepped out on the rickety balcony that overlooked the river and the Lucky Lady Casino. Lights from Tyron Johnson’s pent­house winked in the dark.

He imagined Beverly pacing the floor, waiting for him to call. Beverly, with her soulful green eyes and floral fragrance. Beverly who, over the last years, had become a balm to his decomposing soul. She was in love with him, though it had never been spoken aloud. It was evi­dent in the trembling touch of her hand, her quivering smile, in her gaze that pierced to the very heart of him. He suspected that her problems with Patrick were only an excuse to reach out to him, though she probably didn’t realize it herself.

There had been moments, over the last four years, when he had come close to saying to hell with it and taking her to bed. They had been friendly in college. She’d hinted more than once that she was interested in more than friendship. But he had had only one consuming passion in his life at that time. Law. There simply wasn’t room in his life for both. So they had drifted apart, lost touch the summer between his graduation and starting law school. Months later, he had received an invitation to her and Eric’s wedding.

Still, there were times when the loneliness, the empti­ness of his life threatened to erode his self-restraint. When the pain boiled up inside him, ripping at his heart, gnaw­ing at his belly. When he felt as if he were tumbling back into the madness of grief. When the faces of his children paraded through his mind’s eye and the memory of their laughter sent a dagger through his raw, bleeding soul.

The phone rang. He didn’t answer. If it was Beverly again, he might suggest that she come over... to talk. About Patrick. But he was feeling too damn needy at the moment. And she was too damn vulnerable.

The machine kicked on. It wasn’t Beverly.

“Damascus? J.D. Damascus?” A woman’s voice, a little sultry. Definitely nervous. “My name is Holly.” Pause. “Holly Jones.” A sound, as if she had dropped the phone. There was loud talk in the background. “Okay, ah... I found your number on the bathroom wall. I think I need a lawyer. I’ve been arrested. ... I think I might have killed someone.”

The phone went dead and the machine cut off.

J.D. remained on the balcony, the rank, muddy smell of the river as cloying as the hot, August night. Raising the gun, he pointed it toward Tyron’s window and looked down the site. “Bang,” he said through his teeth. “You’re dead.”

After a night spent in hell cell ten listening to two dozen prisoners howl about their civil rights, Holly wasn’t in the best frame of mind by the time Damascus showed up at ten a.m. looking like death warmed over. He wasn’t at all what she expected or remembered from her days of living in New Orleans, and she wondered, briefly, as she stared at him through the cell bars, if the name and number she had found on the ladies’ bathroom wall had been another J.D. Damascus. The unshaven middle-aged man, wearing jeans and a threadbare sports coat over a T-shirt, shaggy, dark brown hair to his shoul­ders—not to mention a small, gold loop in his right ear— could hardly be compared to the Versace-suited shark who had once made the area’s criminal element shake in their shoes.

“Holly Jones?” he asked in a slightly husky voice as he stared at her with bloodshot eyes. He was that J.D. Damascus, all right. While his appearance might have gone to hell, there was no mistaking that voice and the steely eyes that had the uncanny ability to crawl into a person’s psyche.

Not good, she thought. Definitely not good. But she was in no position to be picky. Not by a long shot.

As the cop beside him opened the cell door, Holly stood up and willed the strength back into her legs. She nodded.

Damascus waited until the cop had departed, then en­tered the cell, his gaze looking her up and down, eyes narrowing as if assessing her guilt or innocence.

She swallowed and ran her sweating palms up and down the butt of her jeans. “Look, I shot him, okay?” she blurted. “But it was in self-defense. The creep was dressed like Darth Vader and came at me with a knife.”

He nodded and dug into his pocket, withdrew a couple of white tabs, and popped them into his mouth. “You’re a hooker,” he said as he chewed and continued to study her.

Her face began to burn. “No.”

One dark eyebrow lifted and his mouth curved. “I guess you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, huh? Just cruising that warehouse because you had nothing better to do at two in the morning.”

“I was ... looking for someone.”

Again with the grin that made her face burn hotter. “Obviously.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She cleared her throat in an attempt to keep her voice steady. Any other time and she would be tempted to slap the condescending smirk from his face, but she was in no position to allow her temperament to get the best of her. J.D. Damascus was the only defense between her and a possible murder conviction. “I was look­ing for a friend who was supposed to meet this ... creep. She’s the hooker. Not me.”

“Right.”

“Hey, I thought an attorney was supposed to believe in his client’s innocence.”

“Did you or did you not shoot a man?”

“He had a knife.”

“Did he attack you?”

“He had a knife.”

“Did he attack you?”

“When a man who is dressed in a black hood and cape pulls a knife from said cape, one has reason to suspect that he intends to use it. I had every right to defend my­self.”

“So who’s the friend?”

“Melissa Carmichael.”

He nodded and glanced around the cell. “I know Mel­issa. She’s a client of mine. Specializes in kinky.” He shifted his weight to one hip and crossed his arms over his chest. “So what were you doing there?”

“Looking for Melissa. She was ... frightened. The girls always look out for one another, so I was concerned, okay?”

His mouth curved. “So you are a hooker.”

She looked away. “No.”

“So what’s a young lady such as yourself doing walk­ing around with a .38 in her possession?”

“Why does anyone own a gun?”

“To shoot someone?”

“For protection.”

“So where is Melissa?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t show.”

“How did you know where she was to meet this par­ticular john?”

“She left a message on my cell phone. If you don’t believe me, listen to it.”

His gray eyes narrowed again. It was that look that could unnerve the most cold-blooded killer to the root of his black heart—as could the silence that filled up the space between them. The eyes, the condescending smirk on his mouth, at another time in her life might have made her confess to a crime she didn’t commit. It was a look that could convince a soul they were guilty whether they were or not.

She swallowed and tried to keep the tremor from her voice. “Look, I shot him. I don’t deny it. But I’m telling you—”

“Self-defense.” Again with the smirk, a tip of the head, the gaze that slid over her from head to foot, then back to her eyes, his own narrowing even more. She could almost hear his brain shifting through the files in his mem­ory. Damascus’s cutthroat courtroom techniques weren’t the only reason defense attorneys had too often floundered in their representations. The former assistant district at­torney had a photographic memory that could make a com­puter blow its circuits.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

There it was.

“We’ve never met.”

“You look familiar.”

“Our paths might have crossed.” She cleared her throat. “But we never met.”

He slowly nodded, his inspection of her still intense. “I know you.”

“Hey, what difference does it make? I need a lawyer, okay? I killed a man—”

“No, you didn’t.” She blinked. “No?”

“No.” He shook his head. “He’ll be sore as hell for a few days, but he’ll survive to grate on my nerves yet another day.” He stepped to one side, away from the cell door. “You’re free to go, Miss . .. Jones.”

She blinked again, disbelief and relief rushing through her in a hot wave. “Free?”

He nodded, still smirking.

“I don’t understand.”

“No charges are being pressed against you.”

“Just like that.”

“Just like that.”

“But—”

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Miss Jones. Just go and don’t look back.”

Her gaze still locked on his lean face, she slowly moved by him. He was still assessing her, she could tell.

“You can retrieve your personal belongings, including your weapon. That is if it’s registered and you have a permit.”

“It’s registered and I have a permit.”

He reached into his pocket and withdrew another cou­ple of tablets, popped them into his mouth, and followed her out of the cell, eyes still narrowed, gaze moving slowly up and down her body. As she opened her mouth to again question this somewhat miraculous turn of events, he cut her off.

“Good-bye, Miss Jones.”

*      *      *

He had a major bone to pick with the chief of police regarding the murders of two prostitutes, but ob­viously that was going to have to wait considering Travis Killroy’s shoulder had been laid open with Holly Jones’s .38. The chief’s recent forays into kinky with the local hookers was a hush-hush point of controversy on the force, but like many other covered-up scandals, it wasn’t high on the list of the department’s priorities at the mo­ment. The last thing they wanted was for such information to become public knowledge, so obviously they would want Holly Jones cut loose as soon as possible. J.D. would sure as hell like to be a fly on the wall as the chief tried to explain to his wife how he was injured. In the line of duty just wasn’t going to cut it. Had the chief of police been injured in a shoot-out with a suspect, it would be blasted over the local papers and he would be up for a medal. Alas, there were no medals for wounded in the line of blow jobs.

As J.D. hit the elevator button for the morgue floor in the basement, he continued to run Holly Jones through the files in his brain. The woman was a looker, no doubt about it. And she was lying through her teeth. He had always had the uncanny ability to sniff out deceit as adeptly as a bloodhound on a scent. She hadn’t squirmed, exactly, when she’d denied she was a hooker, but damned close. And while the department had found no priors on her, not so much as a traffic ticket, she was clearly hiding something.

And he had definitely seen her before. A man simply didn’t forget her kind—not that sort of exotic beauty. Had his mind not been so fogged from lack of sleep and clut­tered with the recent murders and the implications thereof, he might have given more thought to her. Might have even asked her out for a drink, just so he could assuage the niggling in his head that he had, at some time, done more than simply crossed paths with her.

But she looked too damn good in her jeans, and a sim­ple cocktail might have led to dinner, and he had always avoided getting involved with his clients. He had enough personal problems of his own without getting emotionally tangled up with people whose lives were in a mire. His gut instinct told him that Holly Jones—babe or not— could be trouble in more ways than one.

Besides, his stomach was hurting like hell.

“Hey, Damascus!”

He looked around as the elevator door opened. Holly Jones ran down the corridor toward him.

“Wait up,” she shouted, her pretty face set in grim de­termination. He didn’t like the looks of it and suspected what was coming.

He stepped into the elevator and punched the Close Door button.

Too late. She leapt into the elevator just as the door was sliding closed.

She glared at him, breathing hard. “You’ll never believe what they told me.”

He punched the basement button. “Try me.”

“They aren’t going to pursue charges on that creep. I mean, he had a knife—”

“He didn’t attack you, Miss Jones.”

“This is unbelievable. There should be an investigation at least—”

“If the department investigated every freak out there, there would be no time to investigate the significant crimes—”

“Murdering hookers is not significant? Is that what you’re saying, Damascus?” Her blue eyes flashed.

The elevator stopped and the door opened. She fol­lowed him into the hall, her stride lengthening as he walked faster.

“So who’s to say that he wouldn’t have attempted to kill me?”

“You don’t arrest people on supposition, Miss Jones.” He stopped so suddenly she nearly plowed into him. Her face red, she stood toe to toe with him, visibly shaking with anger, her body language confrontational. Withdraw­ing a paper from his jeans pocket, he handed it to her. “I almost forgot.”

She forced her gaze away from his and looked at it. “What’s this?”

“My bill.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Three hundred dollars? Oh my God. You’re joking, right?”

“One hundred an hour. You can drop by my office Monday morning and pay it. I don’t take checks, FYI.”

He turned and entered the morgue through wide, double doors, leaving Holly staring at the statement in her hand. The reception desk was empty, so he continued down the long, pale green corridor, the intense cold biting through his coat and T-shirt and the odor of formaldehyde making him a little queazy.

Once he had traipsed these corridors with regularity, shadowing the medical examiner during murder victims’ autopsies looking for evidence that could nail a suspect and make his case. He had eventually become desensi­tized to the sight of corpses, though he was continually shocked over what human beings inflicted on one another.

As he entered the exam room, the medical examiner glanced away from the cadaver she was working on, grunted, and mumbled behind her nose and mouth shield, “Figured as much. Enoch mentioned you’d probably be snooping around. Cherry Brown, right?”

He nodded and held his breath, the stink of gastric acids making his eyes water. Obviously, Janice Mallory was on the back end of the autopsy. The room was swimming in blood. It dripped from the hanging meat scales used to weigh the organs and was smeared on the chalkboard where she had written organ weights. The deceased’s or­gans were scattered over tables and the brain had been hung by a string in a large jar of formalin.

“Grab yourself a coffee and make yourself at home. I won’t be a minute.”

He poured himself a black coffee and joined her at the table. The cadaver looked to be a teenaged girl.

“Another damn drug overdose.” Janice shook her head. “I’m telling you, if the schools would haul the kids’ de­linquent asses into this room so they could see what waits for them on the other side of slamming, we might see less of these.”

She tossed the pick ups into a tray of disinfectant and barked an order at the diener.

“You shouldn’t be here, Damascus,” Janice pointed out.

“You know I’m not supposed to talk to you about Cherry Brown.”

“But you will because you adore me.” He sipped the hot coffee.

She glanced at the diener and nodded at the body. “Close her up and make it neat. The parents have enough grief to deal with without their baby coming back to them looking like Frankenstein’s monster.”

Turning her back on the assistant, she looked at J.D. and rolled her eyes, lowered her voice. “Guy’s a rookie, and a shit one. Someone at the university was asleep at the wheel when they turned him loose.” She pulled the double layer of rubber gloves from her hands and raised one gray eyebrow. “How’s the ulcers?”

“Don’t change the subject, Janice.”

“Mallory says you were vomiting up blood.”

“It comes and goes.”

“Get it taken care of. I’d hate to have to cut your cute ass open when a trip to your doctor could easily prevent it.”

He followed her to a table where she proceeded to label the specimen cassettes. “I understand Cherry Brown wasn’t the first.”

“Yeah? Who told you that?”

“A source. And she’s reliable, so don’t give me any of your famous Mallory double-talk.”

She scribbled on a cassette, then picked up another. “A woman was brought in last week. Tyra Smith, or so she called herself. Body’s still in the cooler if you want a peek.”

“Same mutilation?”

“Identical. Evisceration and decapitation. Both women were dead before the mutilations. Thank God for small favors, huh?”

“Cause of the actual death?”

She shrugged. “Possible head injuries. Could have been strangled or had her throat cut. But since the decapitation included the neck to the shoulders, it’s impossible to say for certain. Considering the amount of blood loss before death, I’d be willing to wager my reputation that her throat was cut.”

“Evidence of sexual activity?”

“Nope. Not before or after death. I don’t think it’s sex­ual appreciation that’s giving this guy his jollies.”

“Did the CSI team pick up any evidence?”

She grinned and continued labeling. “That’s not my job description, J.D.”

“Your husband must have said something.”

“Don’t ask me to go there. My husband would chew my butt good if he knew I’d told you as much as I have.” Janice tugged the shield from her face and tossed it onto the table. “Let the department do its job, okay? Stay out of it. It’s none of your business.”

“It damn well is my business, and you know it.”

She finally turned her gaze up to his. Her eyes showed sympathy, the deep lines in her brow concern. “We’re dealing with a prostitute, J.D. God knows how many men have been in these women’s apartments.”

“What about the bodies?”

“Clean as a whistle. No latent prints, hair, or seminal fluids.” She rested one broad hip against the desk and pinned him with her eyes. “Look, I can appreciate how you’re feeling—”

“I’m getting pretty tired of hearing how everyone ap­preciates how I feel. My wife and kids are dead, Janice, and a man was executed for murders he didn’t commit.”

“We don’t know that. Yet.”

“The M.O. is identical.”

“It was a well-publicized crime. Gonzalez wasn’t the first nut to cut off women’s heads. It happens. Two months ago, some freak decapitated a woman and hung her head from a flagpole on Jackson Square. Why? Be­cause she cut him off at a traffic light. The world, unfor­tunately, is full of weirdos.”

He reached past her and retrieved Cherry’s exam report from the desk, scanned it briefly before focusing again on Janice’s face. “Hacksaw. Evisceration wounds by proba­ble surgical type blade.”

“All public record, you know that.” She sighed. “J.D., those murders were well documented. Three books were written on the crimes that I know of. Hell, have you had a look on the Internet? It’s there in all its gory detail, including photos.”

He looked away. “I’ve seen them.”

She put a comforting hand on his arm. “Why do you insist on doing this to yourself? It’s eating you up. You’ve let it destroy your career and your health. It’s been four years. At some point you’ve got to move on.”

“If I thought the right man had been executed, maybe I could.”

A door opened and a woman peered in, her eyes bright­ening as she noted J.D. “Hey, gorgeous. Long time no see. We’ve missed your harassment around here.”

He grinned. “Hi, Connie. How’s the family?”

“Great. My daughter is still single, by the way. Hint, hint.”

He laughed.

Janice elbowed him. “She’s pretty, too. Just what you need right now. Or are you still dating that gal from rec­ords?”

Shrugging, he tossed the report back onto the desk. “Off and on. Nothing serious.”

“Great,” Connie said. “Maybe there’s hope yet. Doc, you have a phone call. Sounds important.”

Janice smiled. “Sorry. Duty calls. Maybe we’ll do lunch soon?”

J.D. nodded.

He followed Janice out of the exam room and watched as she strode down the corridor, her bloodied scrub suit flapping around her legs. As she disappeared around a corner, he moved down the hallway, passing several empty exam rooms, and paused at the closed door of the file room. He entered and moved swiftly to the wall of files, to the “D” storage. When he located the folder la­beled Damascus, laura, he withdrew the file and made his way cautiously through the reception area and back out through the wide, double doors, coming face-to-face with Holly Jones.

Stopping short, he glared down into her irate blue eyes. “Why the hell are you still here?”

“I can’t pay this.” She waved the statement under his nose. “I’m not made out of money, you know.”

“If you couldn’t afford a lawyer, you shouldn’t have called one.”

“I suspected any lawyer who advertises on the wall of the women’s bathroom wouldn’t charge his clients out the yin yang. You’re not exactly Johnny Cochran, you know.”

“If I was Cochran, you’d be paying six hundred bucks an hour.” He stepped around her. “Call my office Monday. Set up a payment plan.”

Exiting the building into the heat, J.D. paused, checked his watch. He was to meet Beverly at twelve sharp for lunch. He would just make it if he hurried.

“You could at least give me a lift to my car,” Holly said as she moved up behind him. “Or will you charge me for that as well?”

Christ, the woman had attitude, and if there was any­thing he wasn’t in the mood for at the moment, it was attitude. He glanced over his shoulder, prepared to tell her to get lost. In the harsh light of the August sun, she looked pale, her face pinched by stress and concern. Pretty. Too damn pretty. Keep walking and don’t look back. Holly Jones had trouble stamped all over her.

5

The traffic along Royal Street was typically heavy as J.D. maneuvered his Mustang through the tour­ists and cars parked bumper-to-bumper along the curbs. He could almost read their minds as the sightseers looked at French Quarter maps, mopped the sweat from their brows, and stared up at the sun as if it had no right to beat down on their miserable shoulders. Yeah, the heat and humidity were a bitch, but what did they expect from New Orleans during the heat of summer? If they wanted cool, they should have gone to Alaska.

He checked his watch—quarter of twelve—and glanced at Holly, who had remained quiet the last ten minutes, eyeing the statement in her hand. J.D. suspected he’d never see a red cent from Holly Jones. Nothing new. Half of his clients never paid him. Filing suits against them did little good, even caused him to be in the hole. His grand­mother often said, “You can’t get blood out of a turnip.”

Holly Jones could hardly be labeled a turnip, but he knew the look of financial woes.

For the third time in the last ten minutes, Holly called Melissa’s number and didn’t get an answer. Returning her cell phone to her purse, she slumped into the Mustang’s leather seat, then stared out the passenger window. Her slender fingers drummed the console with impatience.

“So, if you aren’t a hooker,” he said, breaking the stilted silence between them, “how do you know Mel­issa?”

“What difference does it make?” She shook her head and searched the faces of the pedestrians lining the side­walks. There was an intensity in her perusal, as if she expected to recognize someone. There was also avoid­ance. Each time a face swung her way, she turned. “Some­thing’s wrong. I know it. She didn’t show for her john this morning. She’s not answering her phone or returning my messages.”

“Maybe business is good.”

She turned to face him. “What do you mean?”

“She’s occupied.”

“Why do I get this feeling you’ve got a hump on for hookers? What happened to you? Get fed up terrorizing the criminal element in New Orleans? Thought you’d play the good guy for a change?”

“The district attorney is the good guy, Miss Jones. Most of the time. My prosecution arguments weren’t personal. I did my job.”

“Something happened. You look like hell. Though not in a bad way.” Her gaze moved from his profile down his body. Her mouth slightly curved. “I like the look, in fact.

Smile and you might even make it to human.”

She continued to study him with eyes as sharp and savvy as his own. Too sharp for such a pretty face. Too full of life’s hard knocks. “Careful,” he said. “I charge extra for insults.”

“You’re very bitter, aren’t you? Let’s see.” She tipped her head and narrowed her eyes. “Maybe you didn’t ac­tually walk away from the D.A.’s office. Maybe you were fired. You rolled over on a case you shouldn’t have. Maybe took a bribe. It happens. Frequently. Instead of disbarment, they gave you the option of resignation. You were married, right? Of course. You and your wife were showing up in the society section of the paper all the time.

“This fall from grace ultimately ruined your marriage. You’re not wearing a wedding band. And your wife would never allow her husband out the door wearing clothes that look like they’ve been left in a dryer too long. She left you in search of greener pockets when you lost the job. And she took the kids. You’re rarely allowed to see them. Breaks your heart, especially when you’re forced to pay out the wazoo in child support.”

J.D. pulled his car to the curb and slammed on the brakes, throwing Holly half out of the passenger seat. “My life is none of your damn business,” he said. “I don’t have the time and I am not inclined to listen to your smart-ass conjectures. Get out.”

Holly stared at him. Her lips parted and her blue eyes wide.

“Get out,” he said. “Walk your pretty butt out of here.” She glanced down the line of warehouses toward the river beyond them. The street was narrow and shadowed.

Derelicts were sprawled against the buildings, drinking from bottles in dirty paper bags. “Fine. Sure. Whatever you say, Damascus.” She swallowed. “Who needs you anyway.”

Grabbing up her purse, she exited the car, slamming the door as hard as she could. She didn’t look back, just started walking, her tumble of black hair swirling around her back, her long legs eating up the pavement.

The car idling, J.D. watched her make a wide arc around a leering bum, zigzag her way through street gar­bage from an overflowing Dumpster, then round a corner, disappearing.

The woman had brass, no doubt about it. Too damn much of it for her own good. He suspected spite and stub­bornness made up a big part of her psyche. Holly no doubt was convinced it was pride, but her pride could too easily get her throat cut if she wasn’t careful.

Christ, he didn’t need this. He checked his watch, again. Twelve sharp. Beverly would be waiting, having ordered herself an iced tea and him a cola.

“Dammit,” he said through his teeth, then let his foot off the brake.

J.D. eased his Mustang down the street, took a right at the corner, and slowly moved the car behind Holly’s beau­tiful body.

Holly walked with hands fisted in either stress or anger. Probably both. If he was smart, he’d let her go. She wasn’t his responsibility. The last thing he needed right now was more responsibility. Especially one with an attitude who looked like Miss October in Penthouse magazine.

Pulling up beside her, he let the window down and yelled, “Get in.”

“Take a hike.” She didn’t so much as glance at him.

“I don’t have time for this, Miss Jones. Get in.”

A gang of tattooed skinheads stepped out from an alley in front of her. Their faces broke out in lascivious smiles. Her confident step hesitated. She clutched her purse, glanced around at the Mustang.

He lifted one eyebrow at her and smirked.

Wisely, she reentered his car and slammed and locked the door, ignoring the crude shouts and whistles from the delinquents who clutched their crotches and made lewd comments. “Freaks,” she said.

J.D. turned a corner onto Esplanade Avenue, then reached for his cell phone and called Beverly.

She answered before the phone rang twice. “Where are you?” she said. “I’ve been waiting for fifteen minutes.”

No point in reminding her their meeting wasn’t until noon. Beverly was obsessively early to any engagement, especially with him. He glanced at Holly who continued to ignore him. “Sorry, sweetheart. A problem dropped into my life and I’m running late. Order me my usual. Be there in twenty minutes at the latest.”

“This is important, John. I’ve got to talk to you about Patrick.”

“I’ll be there.”

“I found him with a pornographic magazine last night.”

“Twenty minutes. I swear it.”

“What would I do without you?”

“Don’t worry, honey. It’ll be okay. Twenty minutes.”

As he disconnected, Holly looked around, again with the slow curving of her lips. “Girlfriend?”

He didn’t respond, just tossed the phone onto the back­seat, on top of the file labeled Damascus, laura.

The car was gone. J.D. wasn’t surprised. Leav­ing a car parked in the river warehouse district was asking for trouble. As he leaned back against the Mustang, arms crossed over his chest, the heat of the sun-baked street seeping up through his Nikes, he watched Holly pace, growing more frantic by the second, and though she was trying hard not to cry, her voice quavered dangerously.

“Oh my God. What am I going to do? All my clothes, my makeup, my money—”

“What the hell were you doing leaving your money in the car?”

“In my suitcase. You don’t think I was going to walk around this place at two in the morning with my purse stuffed full of money, do you?”

He looked up and down the street—mostly vacant since it was Sunday. Even the too-often-stupid tourists knew better than to leave a vehicle in the area. “You’re sure this is where you parked it?”

She glared at him, her face flushed by heat and anxiety.

He shrugged. “So I drop you off at the station and you file a report.”

“You don’t understand.” She sank against the car be­side him and stared at the curb as if she could will her car to suddenly materialize. “I have exactly ten dollars on my person. Every last dime I owned, which wasn’t much—five hundred dollars—was in my suitcase.”

“Family in the area?” She shook her head. “Friends?”

She hesitated, and her dark brows drew together as if she were considering possible alternatives. “Just Melissa,” she finally said, though not fully convincing J.D. as he watched her avoid, once again, looking into his eyes.

“Anyone back in Branson you can call?”

Looking away, she shook her head. “Not really.”

“Not even a boyfriend.”

“No one.”

“You gay or what?” He grinned. “Excuse me?”

“You don’t look like the kind of woman who wouldn’t have some guy on the hook.”

“God, my car has been stolen and you’re being sexist.”

She dug into her purse and extracted a crumpled box of cigarettes. She tried to light one with a disposable lighter, but her hand was shaking too badly. J.D. took the lighter and lit it for her, watched her soft red lips form to the filter.

“Thanks.” She blew out a stream of smoke and sighed. “I’m keeping you from your girlfriend, I take it.”

He glanced at his watch. Late again. By now, Beverly’s angst would have risen another notch. Sure, he could make a sweep by the department and drop Holly off, drive away, and not look back. But he was a sucker for women in distress, and he knew she would find little sympathy among the overworked vice cops. Besides, what was she supposed to do now with no money? Knowing the slop she was probably fed for breakfast, she would be looking at the very real possibility of wandering the streets unable to eat if Melissa didn’t show. Besides, whether he wanted to admit it to himself or not, he wasn’t ready to walk away from Holly Jones. She intrigued him, made him second-guess his first impression that she was a hooker. Too clean. Too refined. Too damn vulnerable.

Besides, he couldn’t shake that niggling feeling that he had seen her before.

“Hungry?”

“Famished.”

No doubt he was going to regret this, but what choice did he have? “Get in.”

“I wouldn’t think of it. Wouldn’t want to cramp your style or anything.”

“Fine. Stay here and starve.”

As he walked around the Mustang, Holly’s blue gaze followed him. As he turned the ignition, she opened the door and dropped into the seat, crossed her legs, and re­fused to look at him. Pride again. If they had all day he might expound on the detriments too much pride could have on a person’s life.

J.D. was a prime example. If he hadn’t given two hoots about proving his father was right about his marrying Laura, she wouldn’t be dead now ... and neither would his children.

On the way to the restaurant, J.D. made a call to vice and reported the theft of Holly’s car, description and plates. Detective Chris Wallace told him they would look into it but promised nothing. New Orleans was a haven for auto thefts thanks to tourists who too often left their cars unlocked. J.D. didn’t relay this bit of information to Holly at the moment. She was on the verge of hysteria.

Desire Oyster Bar was packed with the lunch crowd, many of whom were already immersed in the French Quarter mentality of boozing themselves into oblivion by two in the afternoon. College punks and tourists who would sleep off their drunkenness through the afternoon and start again when the sun went down and the jazz bands moved onto the streets to contribute to the celebra­tory atmosphere. As J.D. and Holly stood at the crowded entrance, he spotted Beverly in a booth near the back. Her smile froze as she noted Holly.

“Oops,” Holly offered, flashing him a knowing look. “Looks like your friend isn’t pleased to see me. Maybe I’ll just take a seat at the bar.”

“Right.”

As Holly headed for the bar, J.D. wove his way through the tables, noting Beverly’s attention was focused on Holly. She might have the patience of Job, but there was no denying her twinge of jealousy over women he occa­sionally dated.

“Sorry I’m late.” He slid into the booth.

Beverly forced her gaze across the table. “Who is she, John?”

“A client.”

She smiled tightly and reached for her tea. “Very pretty.”

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.” He reached for his cola. “Every head in the place turned to watch her cross the room. Unless you’ve been stricken blind, you noticed.”

“Not my type.” He grinned. He wasn’t in the mood to have his patience rubbed any rawer than it had already been.

“I know you better, John. You needn’t lie to me.”

“What do you want me to say, sweetheart? That her fabulous ass turns me on and I fantasize about fucking her? Is that what you want to hear?”

“Do you?”

Sitting back in the seat, he stared at her as his stomach began to burn.

Her face blushing, Beverly lowered her gaze.

J.D. reached across the table and took her hand in his. “Sorry. It’s been a tough twenty-four hours. I’m on edge. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

“What you do with your life is no business of mine.” She swallowed. “I just don’t want to see you hurt again. Call me protective.”

He squeezed her hand, her fingertips cold as chips of ice against his own. “Okay, Protective, what’s up with Patrick?”

As she poured out the latest news about her son, J.D. picked at his gumbo and did his best to focus on her voice amidst the din of conversing diners. His attention contin­ued to drift to Holly, who sat at the bar, her long legs crossed, her dark hair lying in loose spirals down her back.

Beverly had been right. It seemed every man in the place watched her. Why not? She was every man’s wet dream. Pouty lips, sleepy bedroom eyes, hinting of un­bridled sexcapades. Though she wore nothing more figure enhancing than a tight pair of faded jeans and white mid­riff cotton blouse, she had the kind of body to stop traffic.

Some niggling memory continued to bother him, and as he watched her chat with some beer-gutted man in a cheap suit, flashes of faces and names zipped through his mind, but none of them fit.

“John, are you listening to me?”

“You found him with a porno mag.” He shrugged. “He’s sixteen.”

“Hormones. Curiosity. Experimentation. I know. John, he suggested I divorce his father.”

The man in the cheap suit sidled closer to Holly. He was sweating now, his mouth stretched in a jackass grin.

J.D. felt like driving his fist into the guy’s teeth.

“He wants to live with you, John. That’s how miserable he is at home. He said as much to Eric this morning. They got into a fight. I mean a real fight. Patrick actually took a swing at him.” Her voice grew tight. “Eric threatened to send him to military school. I’m at a loss as to how to deal with this.”

“I can recommend some decent counselors.”

“Eric would never stand for it. God forbid anyone get wind his family life is anything but perfect. All he can think about is his damned political career.”

The creep reached out and touched Holly’s hair.

“I think Eric is going to run for the Senate.”

J.D. frowned. “You knew it was going to happen as soon as Strong announced his bid for the presidency. Eric would be the logical candidate to take his seat.”

“Like I’m going to divorce Eric now.”

“It would sure as hell shoot the wheels off his image.”

Holly gently shoved the man’s hand away.

“John, maybe it would be good for Patrick to come stay with you awhile.”

He blinked. “You’re joking, right?”

“Maybe if he had some time away from whatever pres­sures he’s going through right now.”

“Beverly, I can hardly take care of myself, much less a sixteen-year-old.”

“Just for a couple of weeks.”

Holly slid off the stool, her fixed smile more furious than friendly.

“Are you listening to me? For God’s sake, John.” The man made a grab for her.

J.D. slid from the booth, plowing into a waitress and sending her tray full of drinks flying. He crossed the floor in five strides, twisted his fist into the back of the man’s suit, and wrenched him off his feet, slinging him aside so he landed ass-first into a horrified woman’s bowl of scald­ing jambalaya.

As the place erupted into a cacophony of screams and scrambling bodies, J.D. clenched one hand onto the stunned man’s shirt collar and drew back his fist.

“Enough,” Holly said as calmly as possible. Cautiously, she moved closer, putting her hand lightly on his arm. “No problem here, Damascus. The guy’s drunk and stu­pid. Let him go.”

J.D. looked into her eyes.

“Such chivalrous machismo turns me on, Damascus. But unless you want me to rip off my clothes right here, you’ll back off. Besides, I don’t have the money to bail your cute butt out of jail.” He looked at her mouth, curv­ing now in a genuine smile.

J.D. took a deep breath and released the drunk who scrambled toward the door. His rush of adrenaline sub­sided so swiftly he felt as if every muscle in him had turned to rubber.

“Who the hell is going to pay for this mess?” the man­ager shouted.

Only then did J.D. remember Beverly. He looked to­ward the booth. She was gone.

The apartment where Damascus lived wasn’t im­pressive by any means. A scattering of empty cola and beer cans dotted the furnishings, and half-folded news­papers were strewn at the base of the futon.

Holly suspected, sparse as it was, this apartment hadn’t known a woman’s touch in a long time. But it was a place to crash until Damascus returned from his appointments, and until she could figure a way out of this mess.

Her car, her clothes, all the money she had saved— everything was gone. She’d spent many years of her life in New Orleans and knew the chances of finding her be­longings were slim to none. The chop shops would find little to interest them in the car, but she knew that what­ever gang member had hot-wired the Taurus wasn’t in­terested in the tires or pitiful radio. Money and jewelry was what would interest them—anything they could hock to buy drugs.

She might have made a few phone calls in the years past. Put out the word they had hit the wrong cache and her car would materialize where it had disappeared. Everything would be returned, including a few hundred dollars extra to repay her for her inconvenience. Back then, she could have used the same scenario with Melissa. One phone call would tell her everything she wanted to know about her missing friend. She might have found out who the john was with the slasher fantasy, if it was a fantasy.

Now she had the time to consider the situation and suspected whoever had come jumping out of the door draped in black and wielding a knife was someone the police department would want to keep anonymous, which would explain why they dismissed her case.

When Melissa had called Branson, she was terrified. The murders had started again. There was mammoth fear among all the New Orleans prostitutes. Angel Gonzalez had not been the serial killer who butchered his way through the girls over a period of months.

Knowing Holly would be arriving, why did Melissa disappear? It didn’t make sense. They had been like sisters . .. closer than most sisters, Holly thought. They had known one another since they were thirteen and placed with the same foster family.

Family. What a lie. Ruth and Conrad Jacobson abused both Holly and Melissa. Conrad enjoyed sex with little girls, and Ruth got off on physical abuse. The two girls made a pact to stick with one another no matter what nightmare besieged them.

Just one phone call and her questions and mounting worry over Melissa would be assuaged, but she couldn’t take the risk. If word leaked on the streets that Holly was back in town, she’d be dead before sunrise.

Feeling the muscles in the back of her neck tense, Holly opened the fridge. It was devoid of staples, stocked only with bottles of beer, a chunk of moldy cheese on a plastic plate, half-eaten cold pizza in a box, and a bag of chicory coffee with the logo of the Cafe du Monde.

Holly reached for a beer, unscrewed the top, and turned back to the living area. She didn’t care for beer, but she needed something to relax her nerves. Otherwise, Damas­cus would return to find her hanging from the ceiling by her fingernails.

What had happened to Damascus in these last years? Before her exit from New Orleans, the prominent A.D.A. had lived in a renovated, plantation-style home in the Gar­den District. He’d looked and dressed like a model for Gentleman’s Quarterly. The papers had lauded him and Jerry Costos as future political candidates who would clean up crime and corruption and bring respect to the state.

Something had happened to turn Damascus inside out. Divorce? Maybe. This was certainly no home sweet home. But she doubted that even the ugliest of divorces could bring this sort of destruction to a man’s career. Still...

Pictures of children were scattered around the living room, on walls behind his unmade bed, in stand-up frames on the thrift-store coffee table, and plastered to the fridge by Mardi Gras magnets. Freeze-frame images of a boy and girl, smiling, beaming, some including J.D. in his bet­ter days. None, she noted, including his wife.

The phone rang. The message machine picked up.

“John? It’s Beverly.” Pause. “I trust you’re okay. You’ve really got to get a handle on your temper, you know.” Pause. “Or your jealousy. I sensed your mind wasn’t exactly on our conversation, what with that woman being there ...” Pause. “It’s simply not like you to be so . .. distracted when it comes to Patrick. I’m really disap­pointed in you. Call me.” Girlfriend?

Holly watched the red light of the machine flicker.

Maybe. She had watched them from the bar—before the drunk had intruded with his bourbon-scented breath and his fresh hands. Watched the woman’s face as she looked for any sign in Damascus’s body language that indicated Holly was more than an acquaintance. For a second, her pretty eyes had locked with Holly’s. There had been a nervousness in her gaze. A flash of anger, perhaps. Certainly annoyance. The look had said, “Back off.”

Holly was well acquainted with those types of looks, anytime she came within flirting distance of a woman’s husband. Damascus’s reaching across the table and hold­ing her hand had helped.

Recalling the image, Holly felt a twinge of envy in her chest. She tried to recall when a man’s touch had been proffered by compassion instead of lust. Long ago, she had been naive enough to actually believe a man’s gentle touch meant comfort and caring. But for her, such kind­ness had always come with strings attached. Kindness pre­ceded abuse. As a hooker in New Orleans, she had lost the ability to trust long ago.

J.D. finished his two afternoon court appoint­ments, met his after-hours clients, and assured May she would get paid for her overtime—just as soon as his cli­ents paid him. Then, he stopped by Fang Fang Chinese Take-Out and returned home to find Holly already asleep in his bed.

Obviously, she had found plenty to occupy her time. His clothes had been separated into clean and dirty. The clean were folded and stacked on the bureau, and the soiled were in a pile near the bathroom door. Newspapers and empty cans had been discarded, the trash removed from the apartment. She had washed the food-encrusted dishes he had left in the sink, dried them, and put them away.

He dug a cigarette out of her pack and stood by the bed, smoking and watching her. Her dark hair formed a spray like shadows over the white pillowcase. Her breasts rose and fell in deep sleep. Her midriff shirt had ridden up, her jeans down, exposing a sapphire nestled in her navel. It winked like blue fire at him. She had bathed recently. The air felt warm and humid and smelled like soap. Damp tendrils clung to her high cheekbones and he felt the irritating stir of a need to reach down and finger the curl away.

Hell, admit it. He wanted to lay his body down beside her. The times he had taken a woman to bed over the last years had been infrequent—never here. Not in this bed. This hole-in-the-wall had been his escape from the real world.

Yet, he had opened his door for a stranger. Why? Be­cause he hoped to fuck her? Maybe. Because she was lost? And he was lost? Because in her desperate eyes he had seen a reflection of himself? Or maybe it was nothing more than him feeling uncomfortable over the prospect of her wandering these streets when a serial killer was out there feeding his sick fantasies on helpless women. Yes, on all counts.

He returned to the kitchen and quietly, so as not to disturb her, extracted the hot boxes of lo mein and steamed rice from the sack, his gaze drifting again and again to Holly’s purse. He couldn’t shake the feeling there was more to Holly Jones than met the eye. Her face had continued to nag him through the afternoon.

He’d made a call to the records department at the force and wrangled a favor from Melanie Shultz, an old girl­friend. She had scoured the computer files for any infor­mation on Holly Jones and turned up nothing, no previous Louisiana driver’s license or car tags. Melanie had snooped through the three main credit bureaus using the social security number Holly had supplied the department when taken into custody, finding not so much as a credit card. He might have coerced her into checking with the IRS, but he would be pushing it.

He took a cautionary glance into the bedroom—she was soundly sleeping—then he opened her purse, a big straw bag accommodating the registered-with-permit .38 with which she had shot the chief of police, a collection of lip­sticks, bottle of perfume, breath spray, key ring of several keys, and a small leather wallet. He flipped it open, searched the empty pockets, and withdrew her driver’s license.

“Isn’t there a law against snooping through people’s personal belongings without a search warrant?”

He looked around.

Her thick hair a tangle around her face, her full mouth pressed in irritation, she stared at him with a look of dis­gust. She grabbed the purse from his hand and turned it over, spilling the contents onto the kitchen counter, her hard, sleepy gaze never leaving his.

“Why not do a strip search as well, J.D.? You never know. I might be hiding crack in my panties.”

He leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms as she scattered the purse contents for his perusal.

“Please, help yourself.” She lifted the tube of breath spray and fired a stream into the air. It smelled like mint toothpaste. “No anthrax here, Damascus. No small nuclear devices, fake passports or visas. Would you care to see a copy of my birth certificate as well?”

“Maybe.”

She rolled her eyes and proceeded to snatch up her belongings and shove them back into the purse. “Just when I thought there was an inkling of a nice guy in you, you go and blow it.”

He reached for the carton of lo mein and extended it to her. “Truce.”

“I’m not hungry.”

She turned away, hauling her purse with her, and flopped onto the futon in the living room. “I work my butt off cleaning up this pigsty and this is the thanks I get.”

“Maybe if you were a little more forthcoming, I wouldn’t be inclined to snoop.”

“I’m none of your business. Right or wrong?”

Right. She was none of his business. After retrieving a fork from the kitchen drawer, he began to eat as he joined her on the futon, stretched his legs out, and propped his feet on the coffee table.

“So what now? You have no money or car, no family, or so you say. You came to New Orleans to see your friend, whom you can’t locate at the moment.”

Folding her arms around her purse, she hugged it to her stomach. “I have to find Melissa.”

“Still not answering her phone?”

“No.” She looked at him, then the carton of lo mein.

“So we take a drive over to her place. Check it out.”

She frowned, hugged the purse tighter. “Melissa wouldn’t ignore my phone calls, especially when she knew I would be arriving in town last night. She was thrilled I was coming. We haven’t seen one another in . .. four years.”

Sighing, she ran one hand through her dark hair. “God, I’ve missed her. We were so close for so long. We were family—sisters. Twins. We knew each other’s thoughts before we spoke them.”

He watched the sharp flint in her eyes soften into fond­ness. Her lips curved slightly as her thoughts appeared to drift. When she spoke again, her voice dropped to a sultry tone that made heat coil in his stomach—no ulcer pang, this, but pure, unadulterated lust.

“You ever meet someone you just clicked with, Da­mascus? Like they were brought into your life for a rea­son, to save you in some way? To give you a buoy to hold on to when your entire life appears to be sinking in quicksand?”

Turning her blue eyes to his, she watched and waited. A boat on the river let out a blast from its horn, the deep sound muffled by the fog rolling over the city. Something stirred inside him.

She drew away, slightly turning one shoulder to him. “You wouldn’t understand. You had family, didn’t you?

A powerful father, a socialite mother. Someone there for you at night when you turned out the lights. You needn’t be afraid of shadows.”

Holly left the futon. “God, I hate this town,” she said, more to herself than to him. “I hate the smell of it. The heat and humidity. The crawling tourists and the freaks. I tried to talk Melissa into coming to Branson. It was safe there. Little crime. She could start over, but she was afraid. She’d been turning tricks since she was fifteen. She didn’t know how to deal with the real world. She simply couldn’t see herself as anything but a hooker.”

A hardness returned to her eyes. “‘Once a whore al­ways a whore,’ she used to say. It’s like a stench that becomes so embedded in your soul it can’t ever be scrubbed away. Like butchers. You ever smelled a butcher, Damascus? No matter how often they bathe, they still smell like fresh blood. Or mechanics with oil under their fingernails and the stink of gasoline seeping from their pores when they sweat.

“Melissa isn’t any different than any other woman, re­ally. She dreams of a husband and kids. Santa Claus and birthday parties. But what decent man wants an ex-hooker for a wife? What if the kids were to learn of her past? Who’s to say someday she doesn’t come face-to-face with an old john and suddenly all her nasty little secrets are spewed out for the entire world to witness?

“Those are the things you don’t consider when making the choice to become a prostitute. You think only of the moment, of surviving. When you’re fifteen and homeless, have nothing to eat, and some smooth-talking dude in a nice suit and driving a BMW offers to help and promises you’ll never be hungry again, you grab it. Turn a couple of tricks. You’ve got money in your pocket to buy a Big Mac and maybe a new pair of sneakers with enough change left to hold you over until you figure a way out of the situation.

“Except, there is no way out. Because once you sell your body, Damascus, you also sell your soul. .. your self-esteem, if you had a decent esteem to begin with. Most don’t. It’s already been ripped out of you by some drunken pervert who smells like fresh blood.”

J.D. put aside the lo mein and left the futon, moved toward Holly as she stared at her feet, her body visibly shaking, her hands fisted. Her head slowly rose and the pain in her eyes slugged him.

“C’meer,” he said gently, reaching out to her.

“Don’t.” She backed away, her gaze avoiding his, her body appearing so brittle she might fracture if he touched her. As she turned away, he grabbed her arm, drawing her back, though she struggled, futilely, as he wrapped both arms around her and held her against his chest.

There was no doubt in his mind now that Holly Jones was, or had been, a hooker. She hadn’t been speaking so much about Melissa as she had been about herself. In one swift but heart-punching glance, those eyes had reflected her nightmares and shame. She had escaped New Orleans, put the life behind her. Settled into Branson where life was clean and offered no memories of her past. Now she was back and the memories were crushing her.

“It’s okay.” His lips brushed her temple, the resistance in her body melting little by little as she sank against him, her slender fingers twisting into his shirt as if to keep herself from collapsing. “Wanna talk about it?” She shook her head. “No.”

“Might help, honey. Get it all out. Hey, I’m a terrific listener.”

“Why should you care?”

Right. Why the hell should he care?

He backed toward the futon, tugging her with him. They settled on the futon, and though she attempted to squirm away, to put distance between them, he held on, locking his arms around her so she nestled partially across his lap, her face buried against his throat.

“Who did you work for?” he asked.

No response.

He shifted away, placed one finger beneath her chin, and tipped up her face. “Look at me, Holly.”

Slowly, her lashes lifted and she looked into his eyes. “Was it Tyron?”

“Yes.”

A moment of silence passed between them as the old spear of white-hot hate for the bastard cut through his belly. In a flash, he imagined the woman in his arms as a young girl, alone and frightened on the New Orleans streets. Help­less and desperate enough to trust the smooth-talking pimp in his flashy car and Armani suit—his convincing them he was some guardian angel sent to rescue them.

“He can’t know I’m back.” Her voice quivered with desperation. “Please understand. If he was to discover I’d returned to New Orleans—”

“I’m well aware of how he deals with women who walk out on him, Holly.”

He touched her cheek and felt a shiver run through her.

She pulled away. Withdrew to the far end of the futon, her fingers lightly brushing her cheek where he had touched her. J.D. knew that she would not trust a man’s touch. He wasn’t even certain himself why he had reached out to her. Held her. Looked into her eyes and felt slammed by a desire to kiss her. Not simply kiss her. But protect her.

He dug into his pocket for his cigarettes. Lit one, never taking his gaze from Holly, her pale face, her tense body. He could almost hear her reerecting her wall against him, brick by brick, each second her old attitude forming a barrier between them.

“Was Melissa on drugs?”

Her head snapped around and her eyes flashed. “Of course not.”

“How do you know?”

“She wasn’t into that sort of thing.”

“You said yourself that you hadn’t seen her in four years. People change, Holly.”

“I know Melissa. No drugs.”

“Then maybe Tyron got wind of her contacting you. Found out that she was about to take a hike from his stable.”

She bit her lip and sank back against the futon. “Tyron is stupid and mean as a snake, but he’s not into murder.”

His eyes narrowed as he smoked. He wanted to argue the fact, but no point in upsetting her more than she al­ready was.

“Hey,” he said, waiting until she forced herself to look at him again. “Let’s go find Melissa.”

6

Sunset in New Orleans brought little respite from the miserable heat and humidity. The frequent fog felt like steam against the skin and made breathing diffi­cult. As J.D. eased the Mustang to a stop, the beams of the headlights formed a hazy pool of diffused illumination on the damp, brick street.

Bodies moved like wraiths through the condensation, formless, genderless. A man’s drunken shout, a woman’s tense laughter, distant music from a lone street musician filling the air with soulful saxophone blues—all lent a haunting loneliness to the night. There was a reason Anne Rice set her vampire novels in New Orleans. It was, in­deed, a city of lost souls.

Killing the engine, J.D. looked around at Holly as she gazed out the passenger window, her body tense. “Sure you want to do this?” He sure as hell wasn’t, not with the image of Cherry Brown’s body still seared into his mem­ory. Not that he was particularly concerned for himself— he would be out here regardless, searching, as he had in the past.

She didn’t respond.

He checked the gun in his shoulder holster. Mugging and murders in the district were the norm. Besides the hookers who worked the streets, the area seethed with junkies who, if they weren’t wired on drugs already, were desperate to find a way to purchase what they needed to get them through the night. During the many frantic nights he had roamed these sidewalks and back alleys searching for his family’s killer, it had been a miracle that he had not caught a bullet or a knife in his heart. Thinking back, he suspected that he had been looking for such an end to his misery—wanting it as desperately as he wanted to put a bullet between the freak’s eyes.

Holly took a breath, pulled on the handle, and opened her door.

“Wait.” J.D. locked his door, then walked around, and stood by Holly as she exited the passenger side, nearest the sidewalk. J.D. noted the total absence of hookers nor­mally loitering in the area, perhaps turning a trick in the alley. The girls would be frightened, of course. Cautious.

He took her elbow. “You okay?”

She nodded and together they moved down a narrow alley exactly one block due east from Cherry Brown’s apartment. The alley led to a courtyard—not the pretty, atmospheric patios where some of the nicer restaurants and clubs had set up business, but a weed-infested, cob­blestone area with a crumbling fountain of scum-covered water. Here, the hot fog settled into the creases of his skin and crawled along his scalp. Mosquitos hummed like buzzing fans.

Holly paused, her eyes narrowing as her gaze swept the crowded apartments, two stories of dilapidated structures that appeared to be held together only by the filigreed railings along the balconies. Dim light of low wattage bulbs shone behind the glut of dingy half-sheeted win­dows. Muted television chatter rolled through the fog from somewhere to their right.

Footsteps behind them. He looked back over his shoul­der, left hand easing beneath his sport coat. No one there.

Finally, as if she had acquainted herself with her sur­roundings, Holly moved to a staircase and climbed. J.D. followed. The ancient iron steps protested against their weight, grating rustily in the quiet, causing curious faces to peer out from behind curtains.

A light shone from Melissa’s window. Holly knocked on the door. Nothing. She dug into her purse, extracted the ring of keys, held it up to the light until she located the key she needed.

J.D. took it from her. No way was he going to let her walk into that room and find her friend laid out like an autopsy cadaver. She started to argue, then shut her mouth and stepped aside. Her face looked brittle enough to crack.

He removed the gun from the holster, pointed it up, turned the key in the lock, and nudged the door open. His breath caught in his lungs as he cautiously stepped into the room, his gaze locking on the bed against the far wall. Empty, thank God.

Holly stepped in behind him, her arm brushing his, her body close. “Melissa?” she called softly. “Are you here? It’s Holly.” As she moved toward the dark kitchen, he caught her arm, felt her trembling.

“Stay here.” He eased toward the unlit room, the in­tense heat in the unair-conditioned apartment making sweat rise. The stench of something rotten washed over him so he couldn’t find a breath in the thick air. His heart began crashing in his ears and the butt of the gun became slippery in his hands. Feet braced apart, his eyes throbbing in their attempt to see through the shadows, he hit the light.

Scattered across the table was food swarming with flies and roaches, a solitary TV dinner, partially eaten, a pan with dried-up macaroni and cheese, an open container of milk that had grown thick as cottage cheese.

Behind him, Holly caught her breath. He glanced back at her, shook his head, nodding toward the closed bath­room door. He eased toward the door, toed it open, hit the light.

A tabby cat, frightened by the sudden burst of light, leapt from the tank top of the toilet and exploded toward the door, a flash of movement that made J.D. recoil and anchor the gun in preparation for firing. Yowling pitifully, the cat ducked between his legs and made a frantic escape toward the living room. From the corner of his eye, J.D. saw Holly make a grab for the terrified feline before it slid beneath a chair against the wall.

The room was empty. Only the scattering of cat feces and puddles of rank urine gave any hint that something was amiss. Obviously the cat had been locked up for as long as the food had been wasting in the kitchen.

Lowering the gun, relaxing his tense shoulders, J.D. returned to the living area before allowing himself to take a much-needed breath.

Holly, on her hands and knees, was softly coaxing the cat from beneath the chair. “Here, Puddin’. Kitty, kitty. It’s okay, sweetie. Pretty kitty. That’s a good girl. Poor baby.” She tugged the trembling tabby from under the chair and cradled it in her arms like a baby. Only then did she turn back to J.D. She looked on the verge of shattering.

“Will you believe me now?” she said, her tone razor sharp with fear and anger.

He holstered the gun and studied the surroundings. Neatly made bed where several pillows had been arranged against the wrought iron headboard. Numerous candles cluttered the sofa table, most partially melted from use. Not normal candles, but those used in the local voodoo community, Santa Barbara and Black Devil candles, both of which were used to turn away evil. There were bottles of oils and containers of incense. Rosary beads hung from crucifixes on the wall, as did Mardi Gras beads and voo­doo dolls. Melissa was obviously afraid that some sort of evil would come knocking at her door.

Hugging the cat to her, Holly said, “We have to go to the police. Now.”

“With what?” He picked up a gris-gris satchel and opened it. fingered the locks of hair, bits of chicken feath­ers, and splinters of bone. “There’s no evidence of foul play here, Holly.”

She glared at him in disbelief, her anger mounting.

“There isn’t a cop in homicide who would find a reason to think that something had happened to Melissa. She might have simply taken off.”

“And left her cat behind to starve?”

“It happens.” Stooping, he studied the floor for any ev­idence of blood. None that he could see. If the cops de­cided Melissa’s disappearance warranted an investigation, they would utilize luminal to locate blood stains that couldn’t be seen otherwise. “If, like you say, she was frightened, she might have simply decided to take a hike.”

“You’re unbelievable. After everything I’ve told you—”

“I’m just coming at you with what you’re going to face if you report this.” He stood. “Look around for her purse—anything that might be a clue that she left the apartment against her will.”

“But the food—”

“She wouldn’t be the first to leave her kitchen in a mess. Hey, you saw mine, right?” He grinned. She didn’t.

“Don’t touch anything in case they check for prints.” He moved toward the front door. “I’ll knock on a few doors, see if anyone saw or heard anything suspicious.”

J.D. stepped from the apartment. He took a deep breath. What had happened to his ability to remain emotionally detached in the face of someone else’s misfortune?

Oh, yeah, there had been misfortune here, despite the fact that the apartment, aside from the spoiled food and hungry cat, showed no evidence of mischief. While he wouldn’t admit as much to Holly, he was acquainted with Melissa’s adoration of her cat. Every time she had dropped into his office on business, she’d had the purring feline with her. Her only family, she’d admitted, scratch­ing the tabby between its ears. Her baby.

No way in hell would she have deserted the cat.

Yet, there was no indication that Melissa had fallen prey to the same fate as Tyra and Cherry, or any of the other hookers who had been killed. In all cases, the M.O. had been identical. Murdered in their beds.

That very reason had been why he would never accept that his family had been slaughtered by the same serial killer who butchered hookers. Laura’s body had been found in Woldenberg Park. The kids in his wife’s SUV, laid out peacefully in the backseat as if their throats had been cut while they were sleeping.

She was losing it. The panic that had shadowed her for the last few years was coiling in her chest like a snake prepared to strike. Stay calm, she told herself as she gripped the trembling cat in her arms and moved wood­enly through the small apartment.

Something had happened here, despite what Damascus had said. Something. She could almost feel Melissa’s ter­ror. Perhaps she had been eating her miserly dinner when someone arrived at her apartment. Perhaps she had been thinking about her appointment with the warehouse john— worried, as was the norm. Even in less stressful times, a hooker always wondered if this would be the trick that would go bad. A sadist who got off on pain. A freak fried on heroine. It all came crashing in on her, the memories, the cold, bone-chilling fear, the sense of self-disgust. Helplessness. No way out. Her knees felt weak, her leg muscles burned as if she had just sprinted a hundred-yard dash.

Holding her breath, she tiptoed through the kitchen, avoiding looking toward the fly-infested food. Everything seemed in place. What was she looking for exactly? No open kitchen drawers where some maniac might have rummaged for a butcher knife. No upset chairs. No broken dishes.

She moved into the bathroom, careful not to step in the cat’s leavings. Puddin’ suddenly squirmed in her arms as if terrified of being trapped again. Holly hugged her and whispered comfortingly until the animal quieted.

Makeup and perfume bottles lined up neatly on the counter near the sink. The towels were in place, no sign that they had been used since washing.

Again into the living room, a cautious glance under the bed where Melissa usually hid her purse. It wasn’t there.

Her stomach cramping with a magnifying sense of dread and loss, Holly sat on the floor and looked around. There were many framed photographs placed amid the crowd of candles, incense, and oils. Images of friends and family, past and present. Shots of Melissa’s parents before they had been killed in a car accident, cradling their youthful, innocent baby in their arms. Melissa’s fifth birthday party, a juggling clown and presents stacked high on a picnic table. Another of a Christmas tree and Melissa sitting among stores of opened presents.

Then there were those including Holly. Gangly teenage girls with their arms hooked around each other’s shoulders taken at Jackson Square, their first day in New Orleans. More of Holly alone, each one a caricature of the previous one, the hardship of their existences carving her face into a maturity that belied her young years.

Holly closed her eyes. “Oh God, Melissa. Where are you?”

He stands in the dark and fog, the nearest vapor light one block away, casting not a solitary shadow on the parked Mustang. He’s not at all surprised to find the car here. He expected as much. The brilliant ex-prosecutor would again be haunting the streets and alleys, looking for his family’s killer. What does surprise him is J.D.’s coming here, to Melissa’s apartment. How had he known about the missing girl?

He laughs softly. Coincidence perhaps. Perhaps one of the whore’s friends has reported her missing. Yes, per­haps. But there have been no cops snooping around. Nothing on the police scanner to indicate that Melissa Carmichael has disappeared. As if the department cares. As if they want this nasty trouble to escalate. Not again. That’s what will make this newest foray so much fun. Be­fore it’s all over, again, he will have them dancing on a wire.

Ah, blessed power. The aphrodisiac of complete con­trol.

He moves through the fog to the Mustang. The humidity has settled over the windows in a thick, wet haze. He is tempted to write some cryptic note with his finger on the condensation, feed J.D. some clue that will foster anger and suspicion. Not yet. Too early in the game. This time he will be more careful. He’d acted too quickly those years before, murdered a hooker too soon after she had serviced her last john.

But watching Angel Gonzalez tried for the slayings had been entertaining, if nothing else. In some twisted way, he had been in control even then. Because of him an in­nocent man was tried and convicted and put to death. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Moving down the cracked and buckled sidewalks, he stays close to the buildings, avoiding the diffused light from the overhead streetlamps. It is a long walk to his destination, but he enjoys this time. Enjoys the vibrations of anxiety he feels in the air. The night is unusually quiet, the area vacant. That, too, pleases him. The district fears him. Even now, the whores are trembling behind their locked doors. He needn’t kill again for a while. The terror that he has brought to this community is enough, for the moment, to instill him with the sweet, sweet feeling of domination and authority. It fills him with euphoria as he almost glides down the backstreets to the river, pausing to drink in the scent of the muddy water before continuing down the stretch of old warehouses that have not yet been converted into art galleries and such nonsense.

He hums as he walks, invigorated by what is to come.

The building is ancient, with crumbling bricks that had been lain by sweating slaves’ hands a hundred and fifty years ago, the timbers deteriorating, eaten away by age and mildew, crumbling into fine dust that makes his foot­steps all but silent.

He has researched the history of the cavernous build­ing, which juts out over the river on pilings. Once food was brought here to await its trip up the river on boats, to the plantations between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Hooks for slabs of beef still dangle from the overhead beams, bones of the past. Early in the century, when elec­tricity had become the norm, giant lockers had been in­stalled to keep the raw meat cool. It is here that he stops. Presses his ear against the massive door, and listens, his breath coming in short, audible pants of excitement. He heaves open the door and enters.

She is there, just as he left her. Huddled in the corner of the locker, the kerosene lamp on the floor filling her wide, pretty eyes with flames of fear. Her wrists and an­kles are linked together with wire, her arms upstretched above her head and anchored to the wall. She’s smarter than most, knowing that if she struggles, the thin hobbles will slice into her flesh and cause her pain. Still, as she stares up into his eyes, her body trembles enough so the wires cut into her skin, causing fresh threads of blood to dribble. She makes a mumbled sound behind the black tape over her lips.

He smiles. “Hello, Melissa. Miss me?”

Just as J.D. expected, the bleary-eyed cop on the night shift wasn’t particularly concerned about Melissa Carmi­chael’s mysterious disappearance. He typed out a report and tossed it into the stack of a dozen others he had re­ceived since coming on duty. No doubt he was pissed because he was stuck behind a desk and not out prowling the streets in hopes of making a collar that would get his name in the paper and a commendation from the mayor.

Throughout the interview, Holly had managed to keep a tight rein on her irritation. The cat struggling in her arms had helped, refocusing her short-wired patience each time J.D. suspected she was on the verge of climbing across the cop’s cluttered desk to slap him.

J.D. had answered most of the questions and offered comments of his own. No indication of violence. Yes, he had knocked on a few doors, but the neighbors had not seen or heard anything suspicious. No, they had not seen Melissa, but that wasn’t unusual, considering she came and went mostly during the early hours of the morning. Hookers didn’t exactly work the nine-to-five shift.

By the time he pulled the Mustang to the curb in front of his apartment, Holly had fallen asleep with the cat curled up in her lap. He didn’t notice the patrol car parked across the street until he had shaken Holly awake and exited the Mustang.

The uniformed officer moved toward him through the fog and shadows, one hand locked on Patrick’s arm, tug­ging his reluctant nephew along.

Shit.

“What the hell is this about, Patrick?” J.D. stared at Patrick, who attempted to yank his arm from the cop, avoiding J.D.’s eyes.

“Found him wandering the warehouse district. Said he belonged to you.”

“Did he?”

“Does he?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

As Holly exited the car, Patrick pinned her with his angry eyes, his expression growing sulky. “Who the fuck is that?”

Holly moved up beside J.D., gently stroking the cat.

Her expression looked sleepy and amused by his nephew’s belligerence.

J.D. took Patrick by the scruff of his shirt collar. “Thanks.”

“Keep him off the streets. Next time, I’ll take him in.”

“Right.” He was tempted to tell the cop to take the kid in anyway. Give him a taste of what was in store for him if he didn’t get his act together.

Patrick jerked away from J.D. and shuffled toward the apartment, hands jammed into his baggy jeans pockets. Mounting the steps, he stood, shoulders hunched, head down, and kicked the door.

The cop smirked. “Enjoy your evening.” Then he re­turned to the patrol car.

J.D. glanced at Holly, who was scratching the tabby between its ears, her drowsy gaze still assessing his nephew. “Bev isn’t going to be pleased,” he said, glancing again at Holly, who narrowed her eyes as she appraised Patrick more closely.

He didn’t bother looking at Patrick as he unlocked the door, then waited for the seething teenager to enter. His mind was ticking over just how he was going to deal with this sorry turn of events. The only experience he’d had with delinquent teenagers was with those who had found their way into the justice system. By that time they were already up to their ears in rap sheets and on their way to juvenile lockdown.

Patrick flopped onto the futon, hands still jammed in his pockets, his sharp gray eyes focused on Holly as she moved to the kitchen to rummage through the cupboards for a water bowl for the cat. “New girlfriend?” he sneered.

“None of your business.”

Patrick rolled his eyes and slumped deeper into the fu­ton.

“What the hell are you doing out at this time of night?”

“None of your business.”

“Drinking?”

“Not yet.”

“Drugs?”

He smirked. “Not yet.”

“Maybe I’ll just haul your smart-aleck ass down to the lab and have you drug tested.”

“Fine. I don’t give a fuck.”

“You ganging it, Patrick?”

“What if I am?”

“I’ll kick your ass.”

“Nice one, Mr. Prosecutor,” Holly whispered behind him. “Judge Judy would be very proud of your technique. Rip out his throat and let him bleed all over the floor, why don’t you?”

Stepping around him, carrying the box of cold pizza, she moved to the futon and dropped down beside Patrick. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starving, and I happen to love cold pizza.” She peeled a slice from the box and proceeded to eat, offering a slice to Patrick. He ignored her.

His hands on his hips, J.D. stared at his nephew and tried to control his rising frustration. “What am I supposed to do with you now? Your mom is freaked over your behavior. I’m gonna call her up at two in the morning and tell her you were picked up wandering around the damn warehouse district?”

Patrick shrugged and glanced at the pizza. “What were you doing there, Patrick?”

“Nothin’.”

Raking one hand through his hair, J.D. searched the ceiling for patience. It was one thing to remain cool when there was no emotional involvement, but it was another when the kid was his own flesh and blood, a semigrown image of his son. Perhaps that had been part of his recent problem, his resistance to get involved more deeply in Patrick’s life. Although Billy had only been seven when he died, the boys were uncannily similar. He couldn’t look into Patrick’s eyes anymore without thinking of what he had lost.

“Christ.” He sighed. “Eric is gonna be pissed.”

“Who’s Eric?” Holly asked, chewing her pizza.

“My dad,” Patrick snapped at the same moment that J.D. replied, “My brother.”

Her eyebrows shot up, and she shifted her gaze back to J.D. “So Beverly is your sister-in-law. Interesting.”

J.D. narrowed his eyes at her before focusing again on Patrick,’ who had apparently noted the look that had passed between him and Holly. A new kind of anger flushed his nephew’s face.

“I’ll have to call your mom. If she’s already discovered you’re gone, she’ll be beside herself with panic.”

“If she had discovered him gone,” Holly said, “I sus­pect she would have already called you.”

Patrick gave her a nasty look. “Why don’t you mind your own business? Who are you, anyway? My uncle’s newest piece of ass?”

She smiled. “I was only going to suggest that J.D. take you home. You could crawl back through whatever hole you crawled out of, slither beneath your bedcovers, and she would never need to know you were ever gone, and no one would need to get freaked over this incident.”

“Maybe I don’t wanna go home. Maybe I want to live here.”

“Maybe you don’t have a choice.” She tossed the pizza crust back into the box. “You’re a minor and therefore your parents are obligated by law to remain responsible for your welfare. They’re also responsible for any mis­chief you commit while wandering the streets in the dead of night. Aside from that, you’ve put your uncle in an uncomfortable situation. He obviously loves you very much, but he also has a responsibility to your parents, especially his brother. By involving your uncle in what­ever emotional flux you’re experiencing toward your par­ents, you risk alienating him from your mother and father. What happens then?”

She tapped her temple with her index finger. “Think consequences. Patrick. I realize that at your age, conse­quences have a way of becoming diluted by swarming hormones. Been there and done that, so I can tell you from experience that your actions risk ruining any hope you might have of your uncle helping you through this diffi­cult time. If you drive a wedge between J.D. and his brother, you can bet your father will nip any future visi­tation with J.D. in the bud. I don’t think that’s what you really want, is it?”

He stared at the toes of his sneakers, face red and mis­erable.

“Is it?” she asked softly.

Shrugging, he shook his head.

“Hey.” She laid one hand on his shoulder, drawing his angry eyes back to hers. “I know it’s tough. Sometimes adults don’t understand what’s going on in a teenager’s mind. They forget what it’s like to be young and confused. Trust me, if you hang in there and keep it together, it’ll get better. It just takes time.”

He opened and closed his mouth, then turned away, swallowed hard.

J.D. allowed Holly a faint smile of gratitude, then moved toward the door. “Come on, pal. Let’s get you home before our goose is cooked with your dad.”

Reluctantly, Patrick got to his feet, heels scraping the floor. At the threshold, he stopped and looked back, skew­ering Holly with his eyes. “I don’t give a fuck what my dad thinks. And I don’t like you and your been-there-and-done-that shit. You don’t know nothin’, okay? You think you know me and what I’m feelin’, but you don’t and you never will.”

Patrick stood in the deep shadows inside of his house, watching through the window as his uncle’s car silently, and without headlights, backed from the drive­way then eased off down the street, the red taillights swal­lowed up by the fog.

J.D. had hardly spoken during their short drive. He was pissed for sure. But so was Patrick. The anger made him want to puke.

He pressed his sweating fists to his forehead and squeezed his eyes closed.

It had happened again. J.D. had called him Billy. In the short space of minutes, with so few words shared between them, he had slipped and called him by his dead son’s name.

Dammit! When would J.D. ever look at him and not wish that he was Billy? Billy was dead, and Patrick Da­mascus was alive. He could make J.D. forget the past if he would only give him a chance. J.D. needed him as much as he needed his uncle. They were both ... alone. There were soccer games and concerts and movies to see. J.D. wouldn’t stand him up at father-son picnics. No way. Not like his dad, who was constantly making his mom cry. God, that’s all she did anymore. She couldn’t do anything to please his dad. He was always picking, picking, picking at her, do this and do that and reminding her—all of them—that he had a reputation to live up to and if they screwed up then his career, his stupid career, would be ruined. He had a mind to—

Banging his knuckles against his forehead. Bastard. Fucking hypocrite. He had a mind to—

But his mother needed him to be strong. J.D. had said so on the drive over. His parents’ marriage was screwed up and his mother was very unhappy and surely Patrick didn’t want to add to her misery and stress.

Now J.D. was driving home, to be with that woman. He wouldn’t think about him, Patrick, because he was surrounded by photographs of his kids who were dead and no longer here to love him and need him. What if he married her? That would be the end of everything. Of them. They would go on to have more children and there would be no time at all for Patrick.

Pressing his fists into his eyes, thinking of the maga­zine, that catalogue of smut, knowing that J.D. would be doing to that woman what those women blazed across those glossy pages had been doing. He couldn’t look at a woman anymore without thinking about it, without feeling those urges racing through his groin. Disgusting. Sick. Those kinds of women should be exterminated. Like her. The bitch with her long black hair and her full lips and big tits. He had actually gotten hard sitting beside her, smelling her. He couldn’t control it any longer. Sick.

The room flooded with light. He spun around and glared into his father’s eyes.

“What the hell are you doing up and dressed at this hour?” Eric demanded. “You’ve got school tomorrow.”

He moved toward the door, his gaze still locked with his father’s. Soon he would be as big as his father. Bigger. Taller, like J.D. And stronger, like J.D. Give it another year and the good legislative director would think twice about bullying him and his mother. He was going to make the son of a bitch regret he was ever born. Oh, yeah. Soon, his father was going to suffer.

7

Exhaustion poured through her, yet she couldn’t sleep. Too wired. Her mind kept rehashing every detail of Melissa’s apartment. The fact that she had simply walked away from Puddin’ was the key.

Perhaps what had transpired had not taken place at Mel­issa’s apartment at all. Perhaps something had happened as she was on her way to meet her john. Yes, that would make sense.

Was it too much to hope that Damascus was right? That Melissa had, at last, simply walked away from the life, from the fear, from the threat? Too much to hope for, surely. She would call her answering machine in Branson again, just to make certain that Melissa hadn’t phoned.

As she paced, Puddin’ lay curled up on the futon, purr­ing contently now that her stomach had been filled by cold pizza and a bowl of warm milk. Holly glanced at her watch.

Damascus had been gone an hour.

Perhaps Beverly had been waiting for him when he took her son home. Beverly, with her genteel disposition and timid smile, sly flirtation from beneath the shadows of her long lashes, perhaps a tremulous word to coax a tender touch out of the man she so obviously desired.

Odd that Holly could find empathy to share with a woman of such obvious class. They weren’t so unalike, really. Holly might never have known a childhood of be­ing cherished by parents, as Beverly most certainly had, and Holly had never known a typical teenage existence of high school homecoming games and senior proms. But their mutual desire for the unattainable put them on an equal level. They both yearned for something they could not have.

Beverly wanted J.D. Damascus.

And Holly wanted a man who would love her regard­less of her past, and for what she could offer for the fu­ture: a home and children, a wife who would never take for granted the treasures that such gifts could offer. Some­one who would count her blessings every day and worship every moment of happiness as if it were her last. She didn’t care about money. Didn’t care about flashy cars or impressive houses or designer clothes. Materialism could never compare to permanence, to a man who would hold her in his arms at night and kiss away her nightmares. Or a child’s unconditional love and trust that shines in his eyes when his mother tucks him into bed.

Holly’s man was out there, somewhere. Waiting. Per­haps he had suffered, too. Then he would need her all the more. Cherish her. And she could fill up his emptiness as he filled up hers.

She picked up a framed photograph of J.D.’s kids. Beautiful children. The boy looked just like his father, gray eyes and a mop of thick, dark brown hair. The girl was probably more like her mother, blond, sparkling green eyes, and a scattering of freckles over her pug nose. Rib­bons on pigtails.

Holly smiled and lightly touched the cherubic face with her fingertip, unfamiliar images of Damascus toying with her imagination.

Her gaze moved to another photograph, then another, then another. She wandered to the kitchen and studied the snapshots on the fridge, turned them over and noted they were dated years ago.

Odd. There didn’t seem to be any recent photographs. No school photos. Could the divorce have been so ugly that the ex wouldn’t so much as provide current pictures? Doubtful. Even if his wife didn’t supply them, Damascus would take his own. Unless, possibly, the ex had moved away. How very sad for him. He obviously loved his kids very much.

She returned the photograph to the lamp table and wan­dered into the bedroom. Sleepiness had begun to tug on her eyelids at last. She regarded the bed somewhat wist­fully. No. She wasn’t so callous as to take his bed. She would fold out the futon, catch a few winks, then decide just how she was going to go about finding Melissa with­out blowing her cover.

A small, dim lamp burned on a desk in the corner. There were papers scattered haphazardly. Law books stacked high. More photographs. She moved to the desk and allowed her gaze to wander. It caught on a folder labeled Damascus, laura.

She picked it up. Flipped it open.

The breath left her. Shock punched her in the stomach as she focused on the grotesque images of a slaughtered woman laid out on the coroner’s slab.

Throwing the file down, she backed away, her body shivering and burning at once. She backed into a wall, one hand covering her mouth, her wide eyes still fixed on the file that shimmered slightly under the amber light.

DAMASCUS, LAURA.

LAURA DAMASCUS.

MURDERED.

DECAPITATED.

EVISCERATED.

August, 1999.

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

Her gaze flew to the children’s photographs, her shock equaled by a swelling sense of fear that escalated the pounding of her heart as her eyes burned into those of Damascus’s son. Her hands curled into fists, the nails cut­ting painfully into her palms.

Where were the children? The beautiful, smiling chil­dren?

No recent photographs. Oh, no. Surely not.

She approached the desk again, cautious, as if the file would fly open on its own and reveal Laura’s body in colored detail. Her hands fumbled for the desk drawers, opening one, rummaging wildly. What was she looking for? Anything to prove that her instincts were wrong. His children, his beloved, beautiful children were not dead as well. Not possible. Not his entire family! Why? No, no, they were, perhaps, living with J.D.’s parents. Laura’s par­ents.

Another drawer, digging, searching. A small box of Matchbox cars—a collection of Indy racers, red and blue and green. An envelope of fine, blond hair and a pair of pink ribbons. A scrap of yellow newspaper, neatly folded. Her trembling fingers opened it.

She closed her eyes.

The engine idling, J.D. sat in the Mustang outside his apartment, Emile Pandolfi music drifting from the CD player into the hot August night. He considered turning the car around and returning to Eric’s house, apol­ogizing to Patrick for his annoyance and preoccupation. He’d slipped and called the kid Billy again. Stupid.

He looked toward his apartment. Holly Jones had crawled under his skin and he couldn’t shake it. The fear and shame in her eyes had obliterated his initial disap­pointment over her past. Instead, he had been flooded by fresh fury. Yet another woman destroyed by Tyron John­son. The mounting anger gnawed at his belly even as Pan­dolfi’s piano drifted sweetly into the humid night air. So did his suspicion that Johnson might have had something to do with Melissa’s disappearance. Especially if she had indicated that she intended to get out of the business. “Son of a bitch.”

At three in the morning the Lucky Lady Casino was shoulder to shoulder with gamblers who, earlier in the night, had lost their paychecks or their winnings and were desperate to win them back. As the slot machines pinged and sang, crowds pressing against the craps tables shouted out their encouragement as a pair of dice danced across the green cloth.

At the Caribbean Stud table, J.D., a drink at his elbow and a cigarette in an ashtray, studied his hand. Three kings.

“Make it good, Charlie.”

The dealer, with a sympathetic smile, gave a shrug and a nod toward the black box on the edge of the table. “It’s up to the machine, J.D.”

He looked toward the box that dealt out the cards, five to a hand. An emotionally detached machine that didn’t give a damn if a man’s entire livelihood rested on the fall of the cards.

J.D. tossed his kings facedown on the table. “Just qual­ify, for God’s sake.”

Charlie laughed, then flipped over the dealer’s cards. Grimaced. “Dealer doesn’t qualify.”

The man sitting beside J.D. threw down his cards. “I’m outta here.” He drunkenly stumbled off his stool, then wobbled his way toward the craps table.

As Charlie raked in the bets from the remaining six men at the table, he gave J.D. a sympathetic look. “Cards suck tonight, buddy. Blackjack is hot.”

J.D. glanced up at the progressive jackpot total. Five hundred thousand, the highest in the casino’s history. All he needed was a royal flush. Hell, a straight flush would do. Ten percent of the progressive jackpot would be fifty thousand bucks.

He placed a dollar chip in the jackpot slot, followed by another ten dollar ante.

Charlie shook his head. “You’re a glutton for punish­ment, Damascus.”

“Begging for it apparently.”

He looked toward a blond waitress wearing a form-fitting black dress and winked. Carla flashed him a smile and sidled up close, her perfume washing over him in a wave.

“We don’t see you around here much these days, J.D. Don’t break my heart and tell me you’ve got a girlfriend.” He grinned.

She moved closer, lowered her voice. “So why are you really here, Damascus? Tell me you’re not harassing Ty­ron again.”

He shrugged. “I’m looking for Melissa Carmichael. Have you seen her?”

“Not in a couple of weeks.”

“She mention anything to you about leaving New Or­leans?”

“Melissa was always talking about getting out of the life. Then again, they all do.”

“She mention it to Tyron? Maybe one of the other girls mentioned it to him?”

“Haven’t heard any whispers about it. Why?”

“Can’t find her.”

She raised one eyebrow and smiled. “Honey, if you’re after a little friendly companionship, you don’t need to look up a hooker. I gave you my phone number already.”

He grinned and placed his empty glass on her tray. “If you hear anything about Melissa, give me a call.”

“Sure. On one condition. I dig up anything, you take me to dinner.”

“You got it.”

Carla smiled. “Another drink?”

“A double, and this time don’t water it down.”

She looked at his mouth, her lips curving. “Would we do something like that?”

He grinned and watched Carla walk away. The inde­cently short skirt nicely showed off her long, slender legs.

He thought about Holly.

As he smoked, his gaze searched the room, his mind still sifting through the events of the last couple of days. Tyra. Cherry. Now Melissa. All Tyron Johnson’s girls— just like before.

He won the next eight hands. Nearly three thousand dollars worth of chips stacked neatly before him as his companion gamblers shouted him on and the pit boss be­gan to make phone calls and security was forced to deliver more chips. Gamblers wandered from the nearby craps and blackjack tables and began to wager among them­selves on how much longer J.D.’s streak of luck would continue. The waitresses swarmed around him like bees near a hive, plying him with doubles, brushing their bod­ies against him while their eyes danced in anticipation of healthy tips.

Just as J.D. had expected, Tyron made his entrance, followed by his entourage of beautiful women and body­guards. As usual, he looked like a Wall Street broker: Armani suit, dark tan that set off his sun-streaked blond hair, and ice blue eyes that skewered J.D. immediately.

J.D. was well aware that his presence in the Lucky Lady would eventually reach the sleazebag pimp. No way J.D. would ever have made it up to Johnson’s penthouse— not with the goons who prowled the hallways to keep trouble from his door. It had only been a matter of time before J.D.’s sniffing around the casino asking questions would lure the creep out of his apartment.

Tyron’s mouth curved even as his jaw muscles worked in anger as he moved toward J.D.

Charlie glanced toward Tyron, then cleared his throat. “Place your bet, Damascus.”

“I’ll sit this one out.”

The waitresses scattered, as did the other gamblers, re­turning to their games at the craps and blackjack tables.

Tyron smiled, showing capped teeth that had cost him a small fortune. “I see you’re still blowing your money, J.D.”

“I see you’re still cutting people’s throats, Tyron.”

Tyron took the chair next to his and reached into his suit coat pocket for a thin cigar. He used J.D.’s Bic to light it, eyes hard as he grinned. “You got me all wrong, J.D. I don’t decapitate men’s wives. I only fuck ‘em.”

“Are you saying you fucked my wife before you killed her?”

“Now wouldn’t that just be icin’ on the cake. How sweet would that be? Me makin’ your pretty little wife pant and moan.”

“I think she had more class than that.”

“I doubt it. She married you, didn’t she?”

J.D. reached for his drink. “Where is Melissa?”

Tyron looked away as he smoked, his jaw working again in anger. “I’d like to know that myself. Just like I’d like to know who the hell showed up for Melissa’s john and shot the son of a bitch. Bad for business, know what I’m saying, J.D.? Melissa and I are going to have our­selves a talk when I find her.”

“I’ve seen your kind of talk, Tyron. She’s much too pretty to have her face cut up.”

“Girls answer to the man. You know that.” He put out his cigar in J.D.’s drink. “Now I’m gonna save you a lot of time, my friend. You stay away from my girls. I hear you’ve been knockin’ on their doors and snoopin’ round my business. I’m tellin’ you one last time, and unless you’ve gone deaf, as well as dumb, you’ll disappear. I find out you been walkin’ my streets again thinking on diggin’ up some shit on me, we’re gonna have ourselves a chat. Up close and personal.” He tossed a hundred dollar bill on the table. “Buy some flowers for your kids’ graves, why don’t you? From their Uncle Tyron. With love.”

Holly awoke, startled, and sat up in bed. Sunlight flooded the room through the sliding glass doors as the rotating buzz fan on the nearby table did little more than disrupt the air immediately around it. Heat penetrated the apartment so her T-shirt and jeans clung to her with perspiration. The clock showed eleven-thirty. No sign of Damascus, no indication that he had come home after she had fallen into a fitful sleep.

Again, a banging on the door, then a rattle of a key in the lock.

The door opened suddenly and an immense, angry Af­rican American woman barged in, her hair in gray corn rows and massive silver hoop earrings dangling from her lobes. She stopped short upon seeing Holly.

“Where the hell is J.D.?” she said so loudly the startled cat scrambled under the coffee table and arched its back.

Groggy, Holly shook her head. “I don’t know.”

The woman stormed through the apartment, her weight shaking the floor as she moved into the bedroom, stopped, planted her hands on her hips, and muttered to herself.

“Who are you?” Holly asked. When the woman didn’t respond, she raised her voice and repeated, “Excuse me? Who are you?”

She turned and speared Holly with a look. “I might ask you the same thing.”

“A friend.”

“Urn hmm. I know your kinda friend.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You got no idea where that man is?”

“He never came home last night.”

Shaking her head. ‘That ain’t good. Not good at all. Lord, Lord, what am I gonna do with that man? He done missed two court appointments this mornin’.”

“Once again, who are you?”

“May. I work for him.”

Holly rose from the futon, rubbing her eyes.

May dropped into a chair that creaked with her weight. “He gone and done it now. Judge gonna have his butt on a plate.” She watched as Holly scooped up Puddin’ and moved to the kitchen, poured milk into the cat’s bowl, then a glass for herself. “When did you last see him?”

“Two this morning.”

“What? What did you say?”

The obvious occurred to Holly. May was deaf as a doorknob, or close to it. She returned to the living room and sat the glass on the coffee table. “Two this morning,” she said more loudly, looking at the woman directly. “He left to ... take care of some family issues.”

“Beverly again?”

“Sort of.”

May gave a disapproving grunt and shook her head.

Holly moved to the bedroom, to the desk, and picked up the Damascus folder. The images within had roused memories and nightmares throughout the night. She car­ried it to May, watched the woman’s face as she opened the folder.

“What happened?” Holly asked.

May shut the folder and stared at the wall. “This ain’t good.”

“Who killed his wife?”

“Same one who killed them hookers. Gonzalez. So the D.A. say, anyhow. J.D. don’t believe it. Been eatin’ him up these last four years. Chewed the heart right out of him.”

Holly braced herself. “And the children?”

May’s chin quivered. “Done killed them as well. Cut their sweet throats. Lord, he loved them babies. They was his world.”

Holly sank onto the futon. “Why? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Cops said Laura was just a victim of circumstance. At the wrong place at the wrong time. Found her body in Woldenberg Park. Said she was killed sometime after midnight.”

“What was she doing at the park after midnight?”

May at last met Holly’s eyes. “Don’t know. J.D. was out of town. He speculates that she was taken there for the killing. You know, someplace public. He thinks that Tyron Johnson killed her and copycatted the murders.” She watched Puddin’ pad across the floor and jump into Holly’s lap.

“May... are you aware that the killings have started again?”

Her brow furrowed. “Girl, what are you sayin’?”

Standing, the cat cradled in her arms, Holly walked to the front door and opened it. Heat radiated off the old brick street where tourists ambled along the sidewalks, sweating. “Figures that you wouldn’t have heard about it,” she said. “The cops will keep it quiet, considering the wrong man was executed for the previous murders. Two women have been killed recently. Same M.O. Slaughtered in their apartments. Another woman is missing. A friend of mine. Melissa Carmichael.”

“Melissa? Ain’t she one of J.D.’s clients?”

Holly nodded.

With a huff of exertion, May left the chair. The phone rang. May didn’t wait for the answering machine, but lumbered across the room and snatched up the receiver. Holly watched her, hoping the caller was J.D. May met her eyes and shook her head, frowning as she spoke to the caller, then looked at Holly and mouthed: “You Holly Jones?”

Holly nodded.

May replied into the phone. “She’s here. I’ll tell her.” She hung up the phone. “That was a Detective Chase. Said your suitcase was found. Got it down at the station.”

“I need a ride.”

May nodded. “Come on.”

According to the testy, coffee-logged officer, Holly’s luggage had been found near a Dumpster on Canal Street by a foot patrol cop. Her clothes were all there, but the money was gone. Figured. No sign of her car, of course. Figured.

As Holly took care of the necessary paperwork to re­trieve her belongings, May waited in the car, continuing to call J.D.’s apartment—no answer—then the office—no answer. By the time Holly returned to the car, May’s con­cern was mounting. Stuck in traffic, horns blaring and a rap station crashing from a boom box perched on the shoulder of a Hispanic teenage boy wearing a Grateful Dead T-shirt, she drummed her big fingers on the steering wheel and shook her head.

“This ain’t good. He don’t miss his court and client appointments unless he’s on another one of his tears.”

“Which are?”

“Self-destruction.” She pursed her lips. “Catches up to him now and again. Stands to reason if the killin’s have started again. Man got a lot of anger and grief bottled up inside him. I swear he gonna explode one of these days. I told him so, too. If his temper don’t kill him, the damn ulcers will.” Her eyes widened and she pointed at the day-timer on the dashboard. “Hospital. Get the number.”

Holly located the number and read it off to May as she punched the cell phone, then inquired if Damascus had been admitted into emergency. Another dead end. No sooner had she disconnected than the phone rang. May answered and listened, her eyes rolling in exasperation. She glanced at Holly and nodded.

“When did you pick him up? I been lookin’ for that man for the last four hours. Um hmm. Assault? On who? Tyron Johnson. Lord have mercy. All right. I’m on my way.”

Damascus, smoking, sat on a bench beneath a No Smoking sign as May stood between a pair of detec­tives, one of whom was talking with the D.A. on the phone. Holly sat beside him, occasionally risking a glimpse at his profile. Eyes bloodshot, face pale beneath his dark beard stubble, he stared straight ahead. The cig­arette between his fingers shook each time he took a drag. Sweat rolled down his temples.

He had refused to speak to her so far. Aside from his initial glance, which had spoken volumes, he had ignored her.

Finally, May joined them. “They ain’t gonna press charges but Tyron intends to file a restrainin’ order against you.”

In response, he blew a thin stream of smoke through his lips.

May and Holly exchanged glances.

“Can you walk outta here,” May asked, “or do I need to roll you out?”

He tossed the cigarette butt to the floor and crushed it beneath his shoe. “Anybody ever told you you’ve got a smart mouth?”

“You, every chance you get.”

As he attempted to stand, Holly caught his arm. He yanked it away and moved toward the door, one hand pressed against his stomach. May’s look of exasperation turned to concern, and she shook her head, then followed, Holly trailing behind, wondering just how she was going to face this man now that she knew the entire truth about his life.

Now what? If she was smart, she would take her suit­case from May’s car, walk off down the street, and not look back. She hadn’t come here to get involved with a man who, as May described, was bent on self-destruction.

She had returned to New Orleans to find her friend, to remove her, once and for all, from the life. Before she ended up like Tyra and Cherry, slaughtered by a soulless monster who, like a bad dream come to life, had roused from hibernation to feed again on the helpless. Holly wanted to help Melissa get out before Tyron’s power and control could destroy what little hope and spirit Melissa had left.

May paused and looked back. “You comin’?”

She ran her hot palms up and down the butt of her jeans. “Sure,” she finally said. “Sure.”

She sat in the backseat behind J.D. during the ride back to bis apartment. He continued to say nothing, head rested back against the seat, his eyes closed as May expounded on the consequences of his behavior.

“Judge is pissed at you. I do mean pissed. Said he was gonna report your breach of ethics to the court and your clients to the Committee of Professional Conduct and get your ass disbarred. Then what you gonna do? What am I gonna do, for that matter? You go gettin’ disbarred and I’m outta damn job. Just who the hell is gonna hire a sixty-year-old black woman who’s deaf? And what you think you’re doin’ goin’ up against Tyron? That man is mean as a snake and you go threatenin’ to kill him? That ain’t good, J.D. You look like shit. Do you need a doctor? You bleedin’ again?”

Raking one hand through his disheveled hair, he groaned and sank more deeply into the car seat. “Christ,” he finally said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “You’re shout­ing again, May.”

“Obviously I ain’t shoutin’ loud enough ‘cause I don’t think you’re hearin’ me real good.”

“I hear you, for God’s sake. People in Montana can probably hear you.”

“When’s the last time you put anything in your stom­ach?”

He sighed. “I don’t remember.”

“You got food in your pantry or am I gonna have to go shoppin’ for you again?”

“Somebody just shoot me and put me out of my mis­ery.”

“Tyron is gonna shoot you if you ain’t careful.”

“Not if I shoot him first.”

“And end up in prison? What good is that gonna do you?”

“Enormous good, I assure you.”

“Um hmm. In prison with all them drug dealers and murderers you put away. Wouldn’t they just smack their lips to see you comin’? You wouldn’t last a week ‘fore somebody take you out with a shank.”

“You think too much, May.”

“One of us got to think, and lately I ain’t seen you doin’ much of it.”

She pulled the car over to the curb outside J.D.’s apart­ment. “You gonna talk to the judge and try to calm him down or do I need to?”

“Be my guest. He likes you.”

As J.D. left the car, May looked around at Holly. “Keep an eye on him. He’s sick. If he starts throwin’ up blood, get him to the hospital and call me.”

Holly grimaced. “Blood?”

“Got him a bad, bad ulcer. I’d be surprised if he got any linin’ left in his stomach at all. Put him to bed and feed him some Cream of Wheat. I bought him some last week. And ice cream. Puts the fire out.”

Holly nodded and exited the car, dragging her suitcase after her.

May rolled down her window and shouted at J.D. as he mounted the steps to his apartment. “Go to bed, do you hear me? I’m cancelin’ your appointments for the next two days. Make him go to bed,” she directed Holly, who nodded and lugged the suitcase onto the sidewalk.

As May merged her car into the traffic. Holly hauled her suitcase up the steps and into the apartment where she hesitated on the threshold, watching J.D. pick the Damas­cus folder up from the coffee table and stare at it before turning his red-rimmed eyes on her. Again, he said noth­ing. Just turned away and entered the bedroom. She heard him slap the folder onto the desk.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the apartment and closed the door. As she sat the suitcase down, Puddin’ slinked from under a chair and made a mad dash across the floor and began to weave around her legs.

Every instinct in her warned that she should get the hell out while the getting was good. Whatever philanthropy Damascus had earlier shown her had changed into a barely contained disgust. What had changed since he’d left her at two that morning with a smile of gratitude over her treatment of his nephew? Granted, hangovers had a way of corrupting personality. But there was more going on here than that. There was a mammoth-sized difference between a fuzzy brain and the anger she could feel vi­brating the stuffy, hot air.

Holly cleared her throat, then shouted. “Do you want Cream of Wheat first or ice cream?”

Nothing.

Cautious, she moved to the bedroom door. Damascus stood at his desk, the file open. His shirt was soaked with sweat.

“I’m sorry about your family.” she offered softly. “It’s . .. horrible. You have every right to be angry.”

Finally, he turned. His eyes were hard and glassy. “I won­der,” he sneered, “how a woman like you could fuck for a man like Tyron Johnson.”

Slammed by the viciousness of his words, by the look in his eyes, she took a step back. Her face burned.

He moved toward her, his hands fisted.

She backed into the living room, her gaze locked on his. She wanted to run, but she had never been one to back down easily from an unsettling situation. Only twice in her life had she ever fled—once from a butcher who always smelled like blood, the next time from New Or­leans. She had run both times in fear for her life.

She was in no danger now. As furious as he was, Da­mascus wouldn’t hurt her. Not physically. But still, in that moment, she wanted to escape from the pain in his eyes that unnerved her as much as his insults. The unsettling hurt squeezed her heart, while his look of disgust invited all her old self-loathing. Watching the revulsion glittering in his red eyes, Holly was suddenly a hooker again. All the shame and humiliation she had attempted to sweat out of her system these last few years boiled up inside her.

She set her heels and stopped retreating. Damascus moved close and ran one finger along the curve of her cheek, his mouth forming a smile that made her ache to claw his face.

“So tell me, Miss Jones, what do you charge for a blow job?”

“More than you can afford, Damascus,” she replied, hating the trembling of her voice and the sting of tears rising to her eyes.

“You owe me three hundred bucks. If you get down on your knees right now, we’ll call it even.”

She slapped him hard enough to drive him backward. Enough to make fire explode on her palm. Enough to cause a small red bud of blood to bloom at the corner of his lips. Shock flashed across his face, then fury. Still, she didn’t back down. She advanced on him, her hands in shaking knots, preparing to strike him again with fresh ferocity.

“There isn’t enough money in this world to make me go down on you. You want the sordid details? Okay. I walked the streets for a while until Tyron set me up in an apartment for his special clients who had more money than brains. Clients who demanded a higher class of whore. The irony was the big shots with their million-dollar bank accounts were just as pitifully appalling as a crack head derelict who simply needed someone to com­fort him through his shakes.”

Holly turned away, swept the cat off the futon, and moved to the door. She stopped, looked back into his dark eyes, and drew in a shallow breath. “I’m sorry for you. Not just for what happened to your family, but your lack of humanity. For a while, I actually believed you had a spark of caring for someone other than yourself.”

8

He slept for two days, rising only long enough to feed his aching stomach Cream of Wheat. It reminded him of the Pablum Laura had spooned Billy and Lisa when they were babies. Billy had hated it and mealtime was a fight of wills between him and his mother.

Eventually, J.D. had taken over the morning and eve­ning chore of feeding their son. Much to Laura’s dismay, he mixed applesauce into the rice cereal and Billy had gobbled down the mush with great gusto. She had been convinced that the sweet apples would rot out his non­existent teeth and doom the kid to a life of obesity. So they had argued hotly over the issue for a week, until J.D., fed up with the tension, handed the chore back to Laura. He watched as the baby spewed the sweet-free concoction back into her face. J.D. had laughed. Laura had cried. But Billy continued to get his applesauce.

Christ, his brain felt tired. As fried as his body was sore. In and out of sleep, he was bombarded with images: the autopsy photos of his wife; the detailed report of her murderer’s meticulous evisceration; the identically muti­lated bodies of Tyra Smith and Cherry Brown.

When the images of his wife’s autopsy photos weren’t crashing in upon him, causing him to awake suddenly with his body shaking uncontrollably. Holly Jones wormed her way into his thoughts, gnawing at his con­science.

Why the hell should he give a damn that she had worked for Tyron? Not simply give a damn, but be in­furiated enough to verbally assault her, to smear her past into her face and gloat over her look of embarrassment and pain?

Why should this particular woman be any different from the others he came face-to-face with every day? So what that she was beautiful enough to stop traffic. Sure, he wouldn’t have minded spending a few hours indulging his more base machismo fantasies between her long legs. It was the idea that Tyron Johnson had had her that had set something off in him. As if the son of a bitch had, once again, trespassed into J.D.’s personal and private life. Stupid. Holly Jones was nothing to him. A stranger with pretty eyes and an attitude that set his teeth on edge.

There were twenty calls on his message machine. Six from Beverly and three from a very surly Patrick wanting to know why J.D. had missed his soccer game the night before. Two from his irate landlord threatening to evict him from his office space. One call from his mother, something about a family dinner party she would like him to attend. A few messages from angry clients he had left high and dry in court. Nothing from Holly. What did he expect? She had every right to hate his guts.

After another force-feeding of Cream of Wheat, fol­lowed by a generous portion of Rocky Road ice cream and three Tums, Damascus showered, shaved, and rum­maged through the clothes Holly had neatly folded. He dressed himself in jeans and a chambray shirt, rolling the sleeves up his forearms. Leaving the apartment, he glanced back at the bowl of water Holly had put down for the cat.

After a twenty-minute walk in the suffocating humidity, Damascus found his car where he had parked it in the casino’s remote lot and headed for the police station. The deejay on the local radio station warned his listeners of a brewing hurricane that was barreling its way up the Gulf, straight for New Orleans. Hurricane Holly, the storm had been named. The irony of it might have made J.D. laugh had it not made his stomach hurt.

Travis Killroy, the chief of police, was a lean, sinewy man with hard, deep-set eyes the color of slate, and a complexion riddled by old acne scars. One arm in a sling, he slouched at his desk, which was crowded with untidy stacks of files, reports, and a scattering of plastic foam cups partially filled with cold black coffee. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth, which clamped with irritation as J.D. entered his office without knocking.

“What the fuck do you want?” he snarled at J.D. behind a stream of cigarette smoke.

J.D. kicked the door closed. “What do you think I want?”

Killroy sank back in the chair, his eyes narrowed. “I got nothing to say to you, Damascus.”

Bracing both hands on the desk, J.D. leaned toward the chief, who was once his friend, back when they shared the desire to protect the city from the scumbags of the world. “Think again, Travis. Unless you want me to go public with your recent sick forays into perversion, you’ll spill your guts over what you know about the murders of Tyra Smith and Cherry Brown.”

“You into blackmail now?”

“Why not?”

Killroy thumped cigarette ashes into a coffee cup. “We got ourselves a copycat.”

“If you really believed that, this department wouldn’t be burying these cases from the public.”

“I don’t intend on setting off hysteria again in this city.”

“You and Jerry Costos know your asses are in a crack, Travis. Gonzalez didn’t kill those hookers or my family, and now you know it. You’ve always known it, but you cared more for your own fucking job than you did for taking the time to find out the truth.”

Killroy rose from his chair, planted one hand on the desk, and thrust his face into J.D.’s. “Then tell me why the killings suddenly stopped after we arrested Gonzalez.”

“Maybe he hotfooted it out of state. Or maybe he’s playing a game with you. Don’t you find it a touch ironic that Tyra was murdered around the same time that Gon­zalez was executed? The sick son of a bitch is thumbing his nose at you.”

Killroy slammed his fist against the desk hard enough to cause a cup to tip over, spilling coffee to the floor. The dents in his face turned deep purple. “We had DNA evi­dence to link Gonzalez to that hooker.”

“One hooker.”

“He was seen with two other victims before they were killed.”

“Circumstantial.”

“His semen in her wasn’t circumstantial.”

“You tell me why he would have left that kind of ev­idence inside her when he was so damn meticulous with the others. It doesn’t fit. Travis. He didn’t have intercourse with the other victims before he killed them.”

“Well, maybe this particular piece of ass turned him on.”

“Christ. You’ve turned into a dick.”

Killroy kicked his desk, then dropped again into his chair. He took a deep, steadying breath, and averted his eyes. “He had a sheet of priors as long as my leg. Solic­itation. Battery. Shit, the creep was on probation for child molestation.”

“And he was convenient.”

Raking one hand through his thinning, ginger-colored hair, Killroy sighed. His gaze, less angry and more sym­pathetic, swung back to J.D.’s. “I know what you’re think­ing. Hell, we all know what you’re thinking. But Tyron Johnson had an alibi during the times of the murders. Specifically your family’s murders.”

“Marcus DiAngelo.” J.D. gave a dry laugh. “As if any­one with intelligence would believe that bastard.”

“Look. You got every right to hate that scumbag. He’s trash. Bad news. But for a minute, just for a minute, think with your head and not with your heart. You once had the best damn instincts of any prosecutor in this state. Hell, in the entire country. But you’ve allowed your per­spective to become clouded by your grief and hate for Johnson.”

Killroy tapped his temple with one finger. “Think like the brilliant attorney you once were and less like a man who was forced to bury his wife and kids. If you can do that, you’ll understand why Costos did what he did.”

More quietly, he added, “Pull it together, pal. You’re losing it. This shit is gonna kill you if you don’t.”

Shoving away from the desk, his gaze still locked on Killroy’s, J.D. shook his head. “I recall a time when our families got together for Sunday picnics. While Laura and Mary Ann pushed the kids on swings, you and I would share our ideals of justice and bringing the criminal ele­ment in this city to its knees. So what the hell happened to you? You’re consorting with hookers and turning a blind eye to the truth.”

J.D. turned for the door.

“As a friend I’m advising you, Damascus. Stay out of this. And stay the hell away from Johnson.”

J.D. looked back, into the eyes of a man he once would have trusted with his life. “You’re no friend of mine, Kill­roy. Not anymore.”

The approaching hurricane has turned the night air dense, the clouds scuttling over the moon straight above. It peeks out at him occasionally, a pale, pockmarked face that appears to wink and smile. He likes the moon. It fills him with power. Someday, if ever NASA allows a civilian to buy a place on a rocket ship, he is going to go there. He imagines himself standing on the barren landscape, waving back at Mother Earth. He will feel like God. More than he already does.

Thanks to the impending storm—three days out, ac­cording to the storm trackers—the tourists have vacated the city in droves. Bumper-to-bumper, horns blowing as they move north up Interstate 10. Running like cowards. Unlike him, they can’t appreciate the dynamics of such intense and incredible power as the storm will provide. Already he can feel it on his skin, the ozone titillating his nerve endings like an aphrodisiac. He becomes one with the electricity, floating along, through the shadows, hum­ming to himself.

He had not planned to kill again for a while. But the tall blonde intrigues him. He has followed her since mid­night, from street to street, watching her pause only briefly to speak with other whores. They don’t know her. He can tell by the way they greet her, then watch her as she walks away. She’s new to the district.

He lets her round a corner, disappearing from the streetlight, then counts to twenty. Slowly. Holding his breath as he does so, his eyes closed. He can hold his breath for as long as two minutes. He has trained himself to do so. Control over a person’s own body is imperative. One never knows when the body will be called upon to do something miraculous. Godlike.

Twenty. Releasing his breath, he shifts the pack on his back and pushes his bike away from the curb. He glides through the shadows like a hawk, the wind in his face. The whores on the street corner call to him, but he ignores them. They aren’t the kind of prey that interests him at that moment. Hunkering low over the handlebars, he streaks around the corner, his mental wings outstretched, soaring. The tires hum upon the brick pavement.

As he passes beneath a streetlight, his shadow looms beside him, monstrous. Back into the dark, he slows down until he sees the blonde ahead. He drifts into an alley and parks behind a Dumpster, watching as she lights a ciga­rette.

A car creeps toward her. The window rolls down. She takes a step back and shakes her head. The driver pushes and she turns away and continues walking. The car fol­lows and he can hear the man’s voice in an insulting tone as he waves money at her. She says something back, then tosses her cigarette through the open window, into his lap. The car tires squeal on the pavement as the driver takes off, shouting something foul at her. She shoots him the finger.

His heart pounds. His scalp sweats. This one isn’t eas­ily intimidated. It might take special measures to frighten her. She might even fight him. Ah, but the ultimate out­come would be all the sweeter. The satisfaction of break­ing her mentally all the more exhilarating. She might prove to be more gratifying than Melissa, who is begin­ning to bore him. At first, her fear had exhilarated him, but over the past few days she has become as emotionless as a storefront dummy, staring at him with lifeless—fear­less—eyes. She didn’t so much as flinch when he waved a knife beneath her nose and told her in detail what he would eventually do to her.

He waits as the blonde disappears through the dark­ness, then pushes off on the bike, turning his face into the sudden blast of electric wind that barrels down the street, kicking up litter so it swirls like dancing aberrations in the air.

The unexpected current of hot wind tunneling down the narrow street brought Holly to a stop. She ducked her head against the sting of driving grit and the swirl of paper scraps. The wind felt hot and smelled rank with the stink of river mud.

She waited until the gust had passed, then moved on along the route that she remembered too well. She would never forget it. It had all come rushing back to her like a bad dream, infusing her with a filth that would later send her to the shower to attempt to scrub away the sordid memories. To no avail, of course. She could scour her flesh down to the bone, but there would never be a way to cleanse the past from her brain. Branson, and the few places she had settled in those years after she had escaped New Orleans, had only brought her brief emotional res­pite. A shrink might call it denial. And he would be right.

There was no way of denying her past now. Funny how all the old instincts came rushing back. The way of walk­ing and talking. It all came disconcertingly naturally, which was a good thing at the moment, she supposed. If she was going to find out any information about Melissa from the girls, she would have to become one of them again. They wouldn’t trust her otherwise.

Still, the charade had gotten her nowhere—yet. She had been fortunate so far that she had avoided running into anyone who might have recognized her from the past. All new girls. Most of them very young. All hardened. And fearful. She had recognized it in their eyes when speaking of Melissa. No, no one had seen her in days. Holly had known better than to question whether Melissa might have mentioned leaving town. A hooker working for Tyron Johnson didn’t advertise to others her plans to ditch Ty­ron. Too many of his girls, looking for a way to win points with him and a few extra dollars, would gladly snitch on their best friend.

Holly lit a fresh cigarette and stood for a moment, look­ing up at the sky where clouds raced across the moon’s face, white light briefly dappling the brick street, glisten­ing phosphorescently upon the hoods of parked cars.

Due to the approaching storms, the streets were virtu­ally empty. Tyron would be pissed. Ninety percent of his take was due to tourists, and without the tourist trade, the girls would be hard-pressed to meet their nightly quotas of Johns. If the hurricane did slam New Orleans, he would force them to move into cities farther north for a while. Baton Rouge and Shreveport, where business was getting better since the influx of casinos such as the Horseshoe and Harrah’s enticed high rollers away from Vegas.

Silence pressed down on her, all the more intense be­cause it lacked the presence of the usual traffic hum or the distant wail of music from Bourbon Street. It was as suffocating as the humidity, which made her feel as if each breath was inhaled through a damp, wool blanket.

A sound came from behind her and she turned, catch­ing a glimpse of movement at the end of the street. No car. The brief flash of moonlight somehow contorted the shape of the image in the distance so she was forced to squint to make out that it was a biker, his feet planted on the street as he straddled the ten-speed and watched her.

A college brat, no doubt. His old man’s money burning a hole in his pocket. As she watched, he turned the bike away, sailed down the street in the opposite direction, took a right at the corner, and disappeared.

Releasing her breath, Holly flipped the butt of her cig­arette into a drain and continued walking. Her feet hurt like hell and she looked forward to peeling herself out of the skintight, indecently short dress she had taken from Melissa’s closet. She no longer felt comfortable in the revealing clothes. Not that she ever had, but she could hardly pass as one of the girls dressed in her own garb, which made her look more like a schoolteacher.

Another clue that Melissa hadn’t simply walked away from the life: Her clothes were still in the apartment. Then again, had she chosen to escape Tyron Johnson, she could have left behind any and all reminders of the life, as well as leaving behind her personal items to throw him off for a few days. It was a trick the girls often used when they wanted to buy enough time to get clear of his far-reaching tentacles. God, she prayed that was the case this time, but the fear that continued to squirm in her stomach refuted that hope.

Too quickly, the moon disappeared behind a bank of clouds that bathed the street in shadows. She was forced to carefully watch her footing, her spike heels catching on the occasional crack in the sidewalk. She glanced up briefly as, engine purring, tires whispering, a car crept by her, the indistinguishable features of a man peering out at her. She looked away quickly, averting her eyes and keep­ing her head down, an indication to the potential john that she wasn’t looking for business. The car moved on, tail-lights like red demon eyes winking back at her.

When she looked up again, the biker was back, ahead of her, just far enough from the intersection that the street­light only backlit his form, one foot braced on the street, the other still resting on the bike pedal. A sluice of un­easiness flashed through her. It was almost as if the creep was stalking her, playing games. Thank God she was nearly home.

Reaching the alley leading to the courtyard of Melissa’s apartment, Holly slipped her shoes off and picked up her pace. The bricks felt cool and damp and she made a wide arc around a scattering of broken glass.

She knew without looking that he was behind her. She felt him. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw him parked at the end of the alley. A cat toying with a mouse. Instinc­tively, her hand went to her purse. The weight and feel of the gun there reassured her, yet when she reached the wrought iron steps, she took them two at a time, the squeak of the rusty iron sounding extremely loud in the quiet. By the time she reached the door, she had the keys in her hand and fumbled them into the lock as she con­tinued to glance down at the shadowed courtyard, ex­pecting to see the biker appear at any time.

Slamming the door behind her, she slid the bolt into place, lay her head against the door, and tried to breathe evenly, her heart exploding in her ears and her body shak­ing. Puddin’ ran to greet her and slinked round and round her ankles while she continued to listen, eyes closed, for the sound of the grating steps outside the apartment.

Eternal minutes ticked by. Nothing.

At long last, she managed to breathe evenly. She was being paranoid. The biker was nothing more than some Tulane student trying to work up his courage to approach her.

She had every right to feel paranoid, of course. Not only was there a killer at large, but she had been forced, when leaving Damascus’s apartment, to resort to moving into Melissa’s place. What else was she to do? With no money, she couldn’t check into a hotel. She was risking Tyron showing up, or one of his goons, to check on Mel­issa. But again, what choice did she have? She wasn’t about to go back to Damascus. Not after he’d rubbed her past in her face with such blatant disgust.

At the memory of his verbal assault, anger sluiced through her. She scooped up the cat, tossed her shoes to the floor, and turned for the kitchen. She heard it then, the squeak of the flimsy steps, and she froze, cold dread working up her spine. Slowly, allowing the cat to slide from her arms, she turned back to the door and withdrew the gun from her purse. Staring at the doorknob, barely breathing, her senses expanding to the point of pain, she waited.

A knock.

She swallowed and whispered, “Go away.”

Louder, more insistent this time, the knock reverberated through the room. She lifted the gun and pointed it at the door. “Go away,” she said more loudly, the tone surpris­ingly strong and steady.

“Holly? It’s Damascus. Open the damn door.”

She closed her eyes, relief flooding her. Not just relief, she realized as she lowered the gun that felt as heavy as an elephant in that moment. A thrill sang inside her as she moved unsteadily to unbolt the door. Stepping back, allowing the door to swing open, she stared up into J.D.’s eyes.

He looked down at the gun. “Women with guns turn me on, FYI.”

“I’m not amused, Damascus. You scared the hell out of me.”

As he stepped into the room, she risked a look down into the dark courtyard.

He glanced at her. “Looking for someone?”

She closed the door and relocked it before shooting him an annoyed look. He was dressed in faded jeans and a gold and black Saints T-shirt. No shoulder-holstered gun tonight unless he’d somehow stuffed it into his jeans, which was doubtful considering how tightly they lit him, showing off every hint of his masculinity. “I was fol­lowed, for your information.”

The condescending smirk returned to his lips as he as­sessed her. “I’m not surprised. I like the blond wig, but I prefer your own.”

The wig. She had totally forgotten about it. As she yanked it off, her own dark hair fell in a wave over her shoulder. She tossed the blond mop onto the bed.

“So where did you get that?” Damascus grinned. “Fred­erick’s of Hollywood?”

“Right. Along with my crotchless, edible panties, thank you very much.”

“Hey, I didn’t come here to fight with you again.”

“Just insult me.”

“I wasn’t aware that old Frederick was insulting.”

“He’s not. It’s your tone I find insulting.”

She returned the gun to her purse, shoved it under the bed, then sat in a chair and crossed her legs. The short dress barely covered her crotch. She smiled at him spite­fully. “If you came for that blow job, you’re out of luck, J.D. I’m off-duty.”

He sat on the bed. Puddin’ jumped in his lap. As Da­mascus proceeded to scratch the purring cat between the ears, he looked Holly up and down, his expression dark, his eyes slightly narrowed.

“What are you doing here, Holly?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“You look like a tramp.”

“FYI, I am a tramp, or so you so blatantly reminded me three nights ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

She looked away from his eyes.

“What you did with or for Tyron is no business of mine. I don’t want what I said to—”

“Undermine my resolution to put the life behind me?” She flashed him an incinerating glance, refusing to ac­knowledge the emotion crawling up her throat. “You must really value your opinion, Damascus. I don’t care what you think about me. Now what are you doing here, re­ally?”

He dragged one hand back through his hair and looked around the room. “Hell, I don’t know. I told myself that I was going to run to the store and somehow I ended up here. Figured this is where I would find you. I take it you haven’t found Melissa.”

“What do you think?”

“I think your being here is stupid. I think your walking those streets looking for her is even dumber. There’s a murderer out there, Holly—”

“Just what am I supposed to do, Damascus? Forget my best friend is missing and go back to Branson?” She laughed. “I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to. I’ve barely got enough cash in my wallet to buy a hamburger, much less the gas to get me home.”

She pushed up from the chair and began to pace. “God, I had almost forgotten what it’s like to be so damn des­perate. Walking those streets, it all came rushing back to me, how easy it would be to earn a quick fifty bucks. Sell out for a little security.”

She turned on Damascus and narrowed her eyes. “It’s a sorry thing when the greatest achievement of your life is just how good an orgasm you can supply a john.”

He looked away, color staining his face.

“What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you haven’t come across one of your hooker clients that you wouldn’t mind spend­ing a little quality time with. Don’t tell me you haven’t looked at me since figuring out my past and not toyed with the idea of laying me. Maybe that’s why you’re re­ally here. You’re less concerned about my welfare than you are curious about whether I’m a good lay or not.”

“The thought has crossed my mind, but that’s not why I’m here.”

“No? Maybe you’re just fooling yourself.”

She approached him, her gaze holding his, and moved between his spread knees, her thighs nestled between his, the rough material of his jeans brushing her flesh.

Running one finger along the line of his jaw, she whis­pered, “Maybe you told yourself that you were lonely in that hot, cramped apartment. Feeling sorry for yourself over the loss of your family. Maybe you were thinking about Beverly, tempted to invite her over to discuss Pat­rick, in the back of your mind thinking this might be the one time you conveniently let your resistance slip. Or maybe you needed a diversion from your hatred for Ty­ron.”

She forced herself to smile, to ignore the sensation of pleasure she experienced over the touch of her finger on his stubbled jaw. “There are a great many reasons why a man searches out the company of a hooker, Damascus. Mostly self-denial. They want to take a walk on the dark side and need to justify their behavior to themselves.”

She teased his ear with her fingertip, and he grinned. “You’re toying with me, Holly. Besides ...”—he eased his hand up the inside of her thigh—”that pin knife you have strapped to your leg could do a lot of damage.” His fingers brushed the thin scabbard on her leg as his grin widened. “Then again, maybe you’re more in the mood to get laid than you are to cut off my privates.”

He cupped her in his palm, the touch ricocheting through her so fiercely she caught her breath. She felt like warm butter melting into his hand. She couldn’t move, or breathe, as she looked down into his eyes, which were as hypnotizing as they were taunting.

“I thought so.” His finger nudged aside the crotch of her panties and slid between her moist flesh, stroking gen­tly, until her eyes fluttered closed. The heat brought a rise of sweat to her brow. “When is the last time a man gave you pleasure, Holly? Has a man ever given you pleasure? I doubt it. You faked it. That was part of your job, wasn’t it? To make your john feel as if he was the best stud to walk the earth.”

He swirled his finger inside her and she felt her body clench in response. She felt her breath catch and a groan work up her throat. The pressure between her legs mounted, the heat unbearably painful. She hated him for it, yet she could no more pull away from his hand and what it was doing to her than she could look away from his eyes, which were now a mixture of grief and anger and desire. They burned with it, and she realized in that instant just how badly she wanted him—had wanted him since his gaze had raked her up and down in her jail cell, filling her with a vulnerability that was as foreign to her as what he was doing to her body.

He moved so quickly she had no time to react. His hands grabbed her shoulders and he spun her down onto the bed, his body sliding over hers as his knees shoved apart her legs, forcing her dress up around her hips as he pressed the hard ridge of his penis against her. With his hands pinning her wrists to the bed, his weight sinking her into the mattress, he stared at her through strands of hair that had fallen over his brow.

“Tell me you want it. Holly.” he said through his teeth. “Admit it and let’s get this game-playing bullshit out of the way.”

She turned her face away and closed her eyes.

His lips brushed her cheek. His tongue flirted with her ear, warm breath assaulting her gloriously, sending shivers throughout her. She arched her body against his, the rough zipper of his taut jeans against her as exciting as his warm tongue toying with her ear, enticing her to turn her head and part her lips, inviting him in.

Their tongues danced together before he smothered her mouth with his, an ungentle invasion as his lower body rocked and rubbed her, the friction as sensually erotic as what his tongue was doing inside her, deep thrusts, in and out, hot and wet, driving to oblivion whatever resistance she clung to.

His hands riveted her wrists to the bed, the dull ache of his grip as tantalizing as the pressure of his erection against her. A sense of helplessness sluiced through her— shockingly intoxicating, overwhelmingly intense. Her legs spread wider, curled over his buttocks. Then one hand released her, slid between their bodies, and plunged roughly into her panties, his fingers sliding between her slick cleft and entering with a forcefulness that made her whimper, not with pain but with a need so immense she buried her hand in his thick hair so she could kiss him with equal abandon.

Suddenly, he froze. Slowly lifted his head. Something in his eyes gave a warning that made her forget to breathe.

“Quiet,” he whispered, his breathing heavy as he eased his hand from her body and shifted his weight from hers.

She heard it then, the creak of the stairs outside the door, a scraping of keys in the lock. Her eyes widened. “Melissa?” she whispered.

“Maybe,” he replied softly as he slid from the bed, dragging her up with him. “I doubt it.” He shoved her toward the kitchen. “Hide.”

“But—”

“I said to hide, dammit.”

She ran to the kitchen, nearly tripping over Puddin’, swung open the pantry door, then shoved aside a latch hidden behind a two-pound can of string beans. The ob­scured portal popped open and she slid into the black, musty space, which was hardly big enough for her to fit in, and pulled the door closed after her. All the girls had a “panic room,” a place to escape to if things turned bad with a john. She and Melissa had used this one more than she cared to remember. Now, however, as she listened to the muffled voices, she felt locked in a coffin, unable to find a breath in the darkness.

There were men. Several of them. Voices ugly. Dear God. Tyron. No, no, it wasn’t Tyron. She would recognize his voice anywhere. His goons, perhaps. And they were angry. They would be, finding Damascus there. They would wonder why—

A crash. Scuffling.

Sudden silence. Her eyes closed, she listened to the frantic pounding of her heart, her sense of suffocation growing. The footsteps advanced, pausing at the kitchen threshold. She waited for Damascus to call out. He didn’t. The footsteps came closer, hesitating, the soles of shoes scraping slightly on the linoleum. As they retreated, Holly’s knees became weak. Where was Damascus?

Voices again. “No one here.”

Slowly, her back against the wall, she slid to the floor, her knees pressed against her breasts. She thought she heard the front door close. But it might be a trick. An attempt to lure her out. Where was Damascus?

She eased open the door, it creaked and her breath caught, her senses excruciatingly expanded so even the rush of fresh air felt like an assault. Cautious, she stepped from the pantry, her clothes soaked by sweat, her ears straining for any sound amid the odd, disquieting silence.

Carefully, on tiptoes, she moved toward the living room, stopping short at the sight: the chair and coffee table had been tipped over, and candles and picture frames were scattered and shattered on the floor. No Damascus. Oh God.

She went to the window and peered through the cur­tains to the courtyard below. Nothing. Her hands shaking badly, she flung open the door and ran out onto the land­ing. Faces looked out at her from the surrounding apart­ment windows, then disappeared just as quickly, unwilling to get involved in whatever crime had transpired. Swiftly, she descended the old stairs, feeling them tremble beneath her hurried footsteps. She ran in bare feet over the weed-infested courtyard to the alley leading to the street and froze.

Damascus sat on his heels in the dark, his back against the wall, his hands gripping his belly and his face blood­ied. As she fell to her knees beside him. taking his face in her hands, she heard herself cry. “Please ... someone call nine-one-one!”

9

Even if she hadn’t recognized Damascus’s mother from the society pages of the paper, Holly would have known her immediately.

A distinguished lady in her seventies, Helen Damascus had the look of a woman years younger, thanks to bone structure that had once made her one of the most beautiful women in New Orleans. She carried herself with a regal­ness that would rival royalty. Even at three in the morn­ing, she was perfectly dressed, hair and makeup in place, her entire demeanor impeccable. The only chink in her composure was the slight trembling of her diamond-laden fingers as she shook Holly’s hand, her gaze locked on J.D.’s face.

“The investigators tell me you can’t identify the men who did this,” she said softly, moving to her son’s side and taking his hand.

“I’m sorry. No.”

Her gray eyes looked into Holly’s and regarded her with an intensity that made her face burn. Of course, He­len was well aware of the circumstances of her son’s beat­ing. Where he had been and why. No doubt she suspected Holly was a hooker, but still, she didn’t show it.

“The doctors say he hasn’t regained consciousness. That he has a concussion.” She gripped his hand more tightly as she regarded her son’s beaten face. There were stitches over his eyebrow and beneath his chin. One eye was black and swollen. “My precious boy,” she whis­pered, her voice shaking. “He’s gone through so much. Now this. It just isn’t fair.”

Holly slipped one arm around Helen’s shoulders. “He’s going to be fine. We have to believe that.”

“Yes. Of course we do. I just worry. ... He has to want to pull out of this, doesn’t he? Sometimes I believe ...” She shook her head and took a deep breath. “Since he lost his family there have been times when I’ve feared he sim­ply didn’t want to go on.”

“But he did, and he will. You mustn’t give up hope, Mrs. Damascus. The doctors have assured me this is not life threatening.”

“Helen!”

Beverly Damascus rushed, into the room, followed by Patrick, who immediately skewered Holly with a look that fully reflected his thoughts over finding her there. As Bev­erly took her mother-in-law into her arms, holding her tightly, she focused on Holly so fiercely that Holly backed away into the small cubicle’s corner, shut out of the fam­ily unit so suddenly a door might as well have been slammed in her face.

Beverly then turned to J.D., tears rising. “He’s not dy­ing. Tell me he’s not dying.”

Holly moved toward the door.

“Miss Jones,” Helen said. “Please. Don’t go.”

“I should leave. Really.” She forced a smile. “You’re family, and—”

“I’d like you to stay,” Helen said, her eyes meeting Beverly’s annoyed gaze. “She’s a friend of John’s. She should be here.”

“A client, unless that’s changed in the last few days.”

“Friend or client,” Helen declared with a tone of au­thority, “she’s been very kind and supportive. I want her here.”

“I won’t be far.” Holly offered Helen a grateful smile, then moved into the hall where she watched through the plateglass window as Beverly took J.D.’s hand and gripped it to her breast. Threads of conversation drifted to her.

“Is his father coming?” Beverly asked.

“I’m afraid not. What about Eric?”

“He’s with the senator. A late night meeting. I put in a call. He’ll be here momentarily. What is that woman do­ing here, Helen?”

Holly moved away, down the hall to the refreshment room where she poured a cup of coffee. Closing her eyes, she listened to the nurses chatter and the occasional bark of an agitated doctor. Sirens screamed in the distance. Somewhere a Detective Mallory was lurking, waiting for Damascus to regain consciousness. He had grilled her for an hour over the particulars of the beating, not fully be­lieving that she had no clue as to who might have beaten

Damascus and why, though she had been frank enough to give him her opinion.

The adrenaline that had pumped through her the last couple of hours left in a rush. She shook with exhaustion and fresh fear. Not just fear, but remorse. John had been at the wrong place at the wrong time because of her. While Tyron had not been among the bullies who had beat him, she suspected that he had had something to do with it. Tyron was always tied to trouble in the district, one way or another. Perhaps he believed that J.D. knew something about Melissa’s whereabouts. Or perhaps they had simply beat the hell out of him for sport. Regardless, if she wasn’t such a coward she would do the world a favor and march over to his penthouse and put a bullet between his eyes.

“Why don’t you leave my uncle alone?”

She jumped and turned at the sound of Patrick’s voice. He stood in the doorway, face smoldering and hands jammed into the pockets of his baggy jeans.

“Just go away or I’ll make you regret it.”

“Enough, Patrick.” Helen moved up beside her grand­son, putting a firm hand on his shoulder. “While your parents tolerate such disrespect, I don’t. Now apologize to Miss Jones.”

He ducked his head and shuffled his feet.

“Now, Patrick. I’m not too old or you too big to put you across my knee and blister your butt.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, then turned on his sneaker heels and stalked away.

Helen watched him go, her lips pressed, then turned back to Holly. “I apologize for my grandson. My only excuse is his parents have spoiled him rotten.”

“He cares for his uncle very much.”

“He’s desperate for a father figure, I’m afraid. Alas, Eric’s obsession with his job has left his son feeling ne­glected. Not to mention his wife,” she added with a lift of one eyebrow. “I fear they’ve both become too depend­ent on John.” She poured herself a coffee. “The compan­ionship was good for John, for a while. It kept his mind occupied. I was grateful for it. But it’s time that he get on with his life, and the fewer complications the better.”

Holly sipped her coffee, then asked, “Do you consider me a complication, Mrs. Damascus?”

“Quite the contrary, my dear. I care only for John’s happiness and well-being. If you are ... involved with him, and he’s content in your relationship, why shouldn’t I be thrilled?” She tipped her head and smiled. “Are you involved with my son, Miss Jones?”

She put down her coffee. “That would depend on your definition of involved, Mrs. Damascus.”

“Please, call me Helen.”

“John’s been very supportive since I came to New Or­leans. As far as our being involved....” She averted her eyes. Twenty-four hours ago she could have unequivo­cally answered no. Considering what had almost happened between them in Melissa’s apartment, what was she sup­posed to think now? More importantly, what was she sup­posed to feel? Complications? If anyone had stirred up complications here, it had been Damascus, with his grief-stricken eyes and his hands that had made her ache and burn as no man had ever done. She had come back to the city to rescue Melissa, and now she was the one who needed rescuing. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to become more than simply involved with J.D. Damascus. A woman with a past like hers had no business even con­templating romance with a man like him.

A nurse appeared, gently taking Helen’s arm. “Your son has regained consciousness, Mrs. Damascus.” She smiled and looked at Holly. “Are you Holly?”

She nodded.

“He’s asking for you.”

A grin touched Helen’s mouth. “I guess that answers my question, Miss Jones ...”

By the time they reached J.D.’s room, a doctor was in the process of examining him. Detective Mallory had ap­peared from nowhere, his hulk positioned in the corner of the cubicle, arms crossed over his chest, his gun peeking out from under his rumpled suit coat. Beverly remained as close to the bed as she could, face pale, eyes teary. She might as well have worn a flaming sign around her neck that declared I’m in love with John Damascus!

As the doctor turned away to speak with Helen, J.D. looked groggily toward Holly. She approached, hesitant, and took the hand that he weakly lifted to her.

“You’re okay?” he asked.

She nodded and smiled, glanced toward Helen and the physician, who had been joined by Beverly and Detective Mallory. Bending closer, she whispered, “Was it Tyron?”

“His goons.” He took a breath and grimaced. “Tyron’s way of reminding me to butt out of his business.”

“Could you identify the men who did this?”

“Maybe. It all happened too fast.” He closed his eyes. “I’m usually quicker on my feet than that. Guess I had my mind on other things.” He closed his hand more firmly on hers.

Holly spent the remainder of the night curled up in a chair in the waiting room, too wired on caffeine and worry to sleep. The television chattered, a local news channel focused on the advancing hurricane, scenes of businesses barricading storefront windows, endless traffic bumper-to-bumper on the freeways, images of the French Quarter streets dark and empty and the bar owners grum­bling about the money they would lose without the tourist trade. She suspected it was all much ado about nothing. No doubt by the time Hurricane Holly reached the Loui­siana coast it would have blown itself out to tropical storm status, or veered away completely to slam Texas or Flor­ida.

She didn’t believe for a moment that the police would find the men who assaulted Damascus. Tyron wasn’t that stupid. When he had “business” to take care of, he brought in men from other areas. By now they were probably back in Shreveport, or possibly Dallas, having given Damascus a vicious warning to stop snooping into Tyron’s business. Tyron would be gloating, high off other people’s pain-especially when he had administered it in one way or another.

If anything positive had come out of this event, it had been the opportunity to plead her growing concern over Melissa to Detective Mallory. When informed that she had filed a missing person’s report days before, and noth­ing had apparently been done about it, he had assured her that he would look into it.

Voices interrupted her thoughts, and Holly looked around. Beverly stood by a man who must have been John’s brother. Yes. No doubt about it. The hair was the same, a dark brown disheveled mass that looked haphaz­ardly combed. He wore jeans and jogging shoes and a T-shirt. He didn’t look happy. And neither did Beverly.

Beverly glared into her husband’s face. “Where the hell were you, Eric?”

“I told you. Jack and I—”

“Jack? Really?”

“What the hell are you insinuating now?”

“That maybe you were with another one of your girl­friends. Who is it this time, Eric? Your secretary? Maybe some cheap little coed you picked up at O’Brien’s?”

“Get off it, Bev.” He reached into his jeans pocket and withdrew his cell phone. “Call him if you want.”

“Like I would believe a word that bastard says. The senator has the morals of a tomcat. For God’s sake, your brother is lying in that bed nearly dead and you don’t show up for two hours?”

“Like my being here is going to do J.D. any good. Besides, you’re here, honey. What the hell does he need me for when you’re crying all over him like some lovesick teenager?”

As Eric turned on his heel and stormed away, Beverly touched her temple with one hand, her attention swinging toward Holly, who averted her gaze to the magazine on her lap.

“Miss Jones, may I have a word with you?”

Holly wasn’t surprised that Beverly would eventually approach her. As Beverly sat down next to her, Holly unfolded her legs from beneath her and crossed them, in­stincts roused as if she had just come face-to-face with a pissed cobra. On the surface, Beverly Damascus might appear to be docile as a mouse, but Holly hadn’t survived the streets without developing an uncanny ability to detect a potential threat when she saw one. Beverly Damascus wasn’t happy about Holly’s intrusion into J.D.’s life.

Beverly gave her a tight smile. “The doctor just in­formed us that they’re keeping John a couple of days for observation. He took a hard crack to the head, it seems. There’s really no point in you remaining here. The mor­phine they gave him for pain has pretty well knocked him out.”

“Why don’t you simply say what you mean, Beverly? You want me out of here.”

“I wouldn’t be so crass as to put it that way, but, yes. I think it’s best that you leave.”

“Why?”

“John has his family with him. Besides ... it’s obvious that he wouldn’t be in this situation had it not been for you.”

Holly looked away. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

“Not when it comes to John’s welfare ... and happi­ness. He simply doesn’t need more complications in his life.”

Holly looked away. Beverly was right, of course. The same thoughts had drummed through her head these last few hours.

Beverly sat up straight, her fingers clutching her purse and her eyes sharp as chips of green glass. “Look ... Miss Jones. Let me point something out, just in case you’re getting the wrong idea about John’s interest in you. He’s a sucker for losers. Since his family was murdered, he’s taken on the role of savior for any down-on-her-luck woman who stumbles into his office with a sob story.”

Her gaze raked Holly and the short, tight dress she was wearing. “It’s quite obvious what you are, Miss Jones, so I wouldn’t take John’s interest in you for more than what it is.”

She turned and walked away, and Holly stared after her. Beverly’s parting shot disturbed her more than she wanted to admit to herself. She was right, of course. With John’s kiss and touch, she had wanted, briefly, to believe other­wise. With one brush of his lips on hers, her wall of re­straint had crumbled. Why?

She hadn’t allowed herself to get close to a man emo­tionally and physically since she had put the life behind her. Not that there had been many men. A date here and there. A potential relationship when she had lived briefly in Dallas. But always, when recognizing so much as a hint of emotional charge, she had bolted, convincing her­self that no man would accept her past—all of it—and forgive her for it. But the fear had gone even deeper than her fear of rejection. She simply wasn’t—and never would be—willing to put the life of a man she loved in jeopardy.

“Miss Jones?”

Holly blinked and looked up into Helen’s eyes. “Are you all right, dear?” Helen sat down beside her. “You’re quite pale. Should I get a nurse? Perhaps you need something to relax you. You’ve been through a ter­rible ordeal.”

She shook her head. “I’m fine. Really.”

Helen extended her hand, a key in her palm. “John’s apartment. He wants you to go there. In fact, he ordered you to.”

Holly looked at the key, wanting to refuse it. But what choice did she have? It was that or return to Melissa’s apartment. While she had to return to retrieve her things and Puddin’, the idea of staying there after what had hap­pened unnerved her more than she wanted to admit to herself. Hesitantly, she accepted the key, curling her fin­gers firmly around it.

Helen smiled. “Go home and get some rest. John will be out for some time.”

“Right.” She nodded and smiled, relief easing the ten­sion in her spine.

Helen dug into her purse, extracting a wallet, and money from it. “Knowing my son, his refrigerator is stocked with little more than cold pizza and beer. If you wouldn’t mind, perhaps you can pick up a few things for when he comes home. Something healthy. Meat that isn’t out of a can and some fruit and vegetables.” She chuckled. “You know how mothers are. I’ll rest easier knowing that when he gets home he’ll have something decent to eat.”

Holly accepted the money—five one-hundred-dollar bills. “This will buy a lot of fruit and veggies, Mrs. Da­mascus.”

“Buy something for yourself. Fix the place up a bit. Just, please ...” She cleared her throat. “Don’t tell him I gave you this money. His stubborn pride, you see. He never allows me to help him. Says he’s a grown man and can stand on his own two feet.”

Holly laid her hand on Helen’s. “You love your son very much.”

“John is my pride and joy. While Eric may have been born with steely ambition and will no doubt excel in pol­itics, John was gifted with intelligence, and most impor­tantly, a conscience. For a man who has prided himself on his ethics and kindness, he’s seen more than his share of sorrow.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I, dear.” She stood. “I’ll have my driver take you to John’s.”

Tyron Johnson, aka Dr. Yah Yah, was an Armani-suited hoodlum and practitioner of all things voodoo, partly because he feared the hex himself, but mostly be­cause he enjoyed the surge of power he experienced be­lieving that every time he poked a pin in a doll he was delivering excruciating pain to the enemy of the day.

He had never snuffed a man personally, although in his younger days, he had come close to it. Somehow beatings were more pleasurable. It was the pain he enjoyed inflict­ing. A dead man couldn’t suffer.

Tyron had turned thirty-five the day before, and he was still feeling the effects of celebrating. His head hurt like hell and his stomach churned, as if he was on a boat in choppy water. He had called his mother and father in Cal­ifornia the night before and enjoyed hearing their pleasure over the news that he had been promoted to vice president of the DiAngelo Investment Corporation.

It was bullshit, of course, but what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. As if they could be proud as a pea­cock over their son being a pimp.

What mattered to them was that he sent enough money home every month to keep them well fed, clothed, and sheltered, not to mention the occasional vacation to Palm Springs to rub elbows with movie stars. The only down­side to the conversations were the references they made to his past and how proud they were that he had managed to pull his life out of the gutter and become a success.

As a juvenile delinquent, he had spent most of his teen­age years in lockup. He had nearly driven his old lady to suicide with despair, as had his younger brother, Spencer. Now, it went without saying that they never mentioned Spencer when they spoke. As far as they were concerned, Spencer was dead.

Luck had played a big part in Tyron’s life. Had he not taken on the part-time job of running drugs for Marcus DiAngelo, he wouldn’t be in the prestigious position he was now. Marcus had recognized his potential. Took him off the streets and out of the ghetto-gang threads, dressed him in style, and gave him a taste of the good life. Classy whores and clean coke. Parties with movie stars and pol­iticians, pockets stuffed with five-hundred-dollar bills, and gold-trimmed automobiles that made the babes drool when he drove by.

All thanks to Marcus DiAngelo, who owned Tyron’s body and soul and half the politicians in five states. The man had clout. Lots of it. And because of that, Tyron carefully watched his P’s and Q’s. DiAngelo wasn’t a man to cross. If he played his cards right, Tyron suspected that he would be in line to take over DiAngelo’s territory should he decide to retire. So what that he had to kiss DiAngelo’s ass and put up with his peculiarities. Every­one had their little quirks.

DiAngelo’s happened to be his adoration and obsession with Elvis Presley. He had five million dollars tied up in authentic Elvis memorabilia. Autographed photos. Cars and motorcycles that had belonged to the King. Sweat-stained jumpsuits he wore in Vegas. A house in the Ca­ribbean that had once belonged to Elvis. The damn toilet seat that Elvis had been sitting on when he croaked.

Elvis, Elvis, Elvis.

He’d decorated his house outside of New Orleans iden­tically to Graceland, right down to the tacky Jungle Room. “Blue Suede Shoes” had become his national anthem. He played or sang it constantly, even owned a pair of blue suede shoes that had reportedly been worn by the King during a concert at the White House.

Whatever flipped the wop’s switch. It was no skin off Tyron’s nose.

Yes, life was definitely good. Most of the time. Today, however, was an exception.

As he relaxed in his art deco chair, he closed his eyes in bliss as Honey performed oral sex on him. Blow jobs were her specialty. She could suck a man’s entire soul out through his penis. Send him to la-la land with a twist of her tongue.

God knows he needed a bit of relaxation after reading the letter from his brother, Spencer. Spence, doing life in prison, had been gang-raped twice in the last week and the prison officials still refused to offer him refuge from the tormentors. Spence was considering suicide. Some­thing needed to be done about the problem and quick.

As if Tyron didn’t have enough on his plate, what with his girls getting murdered, opening up that old kettle of rotten fish again.

Cops were sniffing around him like a dog on a scent and J.D. Damascus wasn’t helping any. No doubt about it, he was going to have to call in the big guns, so to speak. Not that he liked asking DiAngelo for favors. DiAngelo’s favors came with strings attached. But since it was more than apparent that the wrong man had been executed for the French Quarter murders, things were go­ing to get ugly again and the last thing he needed was the police snooping too deeply into his business. The idea of sharing the same fate as Spence freaked him out.

Honey lifted her eyes and stared at him. “You got a problem or what?”

Apparently, he did. He had gone limp as a noodle— what with his mind being bothered by thoughts of his brother and Damascus. His face began to burn as she smirked at him, as if the problem was his fault. It was, of course, but he didn’t appreciate her pointing it out.

“Maybe I just don’t like looking at your ugly face, bitch.”

He punched her in the eye so hard she sprawled on her back on the floor, making a mewling sound as she grabbed her face. Standing, he stuffed himself into his trousers and zipped up his pants, giving her a kick in her ribs for good measure.

“Just for that, you ain’t gettin’ a fix. See how you like that, bitch.”

She rolled to her hands and knees, her stringy blond hair over her already swelling face. “I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “Please—I gotta have it, Tyron. I’m hurting.”

“Should have thought about that before you got smart. Now get the hell out of here.”

The door opened and Marcus DiAngelo walked in, five feet three inches and pushing two hundred pounds. He stepped aside as Honey, one hand plastered to her eye, ran from the room.

“Problems?”

“Bitch is gettin’ sloppy is all.”

“She’s getting expensive. She’s costing us six hundred a day. Is she worth it?” Tyron shrugged.

“I don’t think so.” Marcus dropped onto the sofa and crossed his legs as he lit a cigar. “From my understanding, she hasn’t turned a trick in days. Too damn strung out to do her job.”

Tyron knew what that meant, and Marcus was right. It was a shame to lose a bitch with Honey’s talent, but the bottom line was, when one of the girls couldn’t meet her quota because she was home shooting up and so damn stoned a john wouldn’t touch her, she had outlived her usefulness.

“I’ll take care of it,” Marcus said. “I’ll have Vince de­liver a cocktail that will blow her mind, literally.” He chuckled.

Well, if she had to go there wasn’t a nicer way to do it, Tyron supposed. She’d be dead before she hit the floor.

“So what’s up?” Marcus asked. “Your message sounded urgent.”

Tyron poured himself a glass of V8 juice. “I got a big favor to ask.”

Marcus smiled.

“It’s Spence.” He gulped his juice. “He’s having some problems.”

“So you mentioned.”

“Damn warden won’t do nothin’ about it. Got it in his mind that Spence deserves this kind of brutality.”

“You’re asking me to shake him up a little. Right?”

“You know, put the fear of God into him.”

“That might take some doing. Lot of strings to pull, know what I mean?” He scratched his head. “I could speak to Mr. Carrelli. He isn’t known for being subtle, however. It might get messy.”

“I don’t fuckin’ care how messy it gets, Mr. DiAngelo. Splatter his brains for all I care. My brother doesn’t de­serve this kind of treatment.”

“Spence screwed up big-time, Tyron. We both know that.”

“Spence would never have gotten caught if it hadn’t been for that bitch.” He slammed his glass down and clenched his fists. “I’m gonna kill that whore when I find her.”

“Any progress there?”

He shook his head and paced to the plateglass window where he looked down at the river. A pair of barges crept by, along with the Delta Queen, radiantly white in the overcast day.

“Somebody’s got to know somethin’. Melissa knows.

Bitch. I got this gut feeling that’s why she lit out. Maybe Shana contacted her—”

“Shana’s a bright girl. I doubt she would put her friend in that kind of position.”

“Those bitches were joined at the hip. Eventually, when Shana felt the dust had settled, I’m sure she would contact her.” He turned back to Marcus. “You got to know some­body who could help me find her.”

“I can’t afford to get my contacts in deep shit, Tyron. You know that.”

“What about Senator Strong?”

Tyron knew the minute he made the blunder that he had crossed the line. And if there was any man alive who you didn’t want to piss off, it was DiAngelo. His dark eyes bored into Tyron like a drill bit.

DiAngelo stood, shifted his silk suit on his shoulders, and slid his hand into his breast pocket, causing Tyron to take a step back and swallow hard.

“How many times have I told you about that, Tyron?” Marcus withdrew a lighter and relit his cigar, his gaze still drilling Tyron. “You are never to discuss my relationship with the senator. Not with me ... or anyone.”

“Sorry. I forgot.”

“That kind of brain fart will get you buried in the bayou ... what’s not first eaten by the gators. Nasty busi­ness, that... getting eaten alive by gators.”

Sweating, Tyron nodded. He’d attended such a hit once, a drug dealer who thought pocketing a goodly portion of DiAngelo’s money was worth the risk of getting caught. Tyron still awoke occasionally remembering the man’s screams, his thrashing about as two of Marcus’s men bound his arms and legs and tossed him onto the muddy shoal, laughing hysterically as the gator crept out of the water and snapped off the man’s head with one quick chomp.

“Need I remind you that you’ve grown wealthy off the senator and his cohorts? Their appreciation of our girls and good coke, not to mention my financial backing, is paying for this apartment and that Viper you’re driving. If I go putting the finger on Jack for favors, and he gets caught, me, you, and half the elected officials in Louisiana will go down the drain with him. Got it?”

He nodded. “Got it.”

“You gonna have that kind of brain fart again?”

“No, sir.”

A smile slid over Marcus’s mouth. It wasn’t friendly. A little like a snake charming a terrified rat before he swallowed it whole.

“Get over this Shana bitch. She’s gone. Face the fact. Your brother got stupid. Even more stupid than you, Ty­ron. Besides ...” He moved closer. “I do believe your obsession with Shana has more to do with your pride than it does concern over your brother. Then there’s the matter of your unrequited love for her.” He shrugged. “We both know it simply isn’t smart for a pimp to go soft on one of his girls. Screws up his logic. Gets in the way of busi­ness.”

His face growing hot, Tyron lowered his eyes. “She was special.”

Marcus grunted a condescending laugh, then turned for the door, paused, and looked back. “By the way ... I un­derstand someone beat the hell out of Damascus.”

That image brought the smile back to Tyron’s face. “Just a friendly reminder to keep his nose out of my busi­ness.”

“Just be sure you don’t kill him. I don’t want your stupidity to call attention to me. Besides ... I’m enjoying his suffering. Good payback for all the hell he brought me during those racketeering trials.”

Tyron laughed. “Enjoy it better than ‘Blue Suede Shoes’?”

DiAngelo’s face turned dark and his jaw knotted. “Ain’t nothing better than ‘Blue Suede Shoes,’ you stupid fucker. Apologize to the King before I blow out your mash-for-brains.”

Stepping back, Tyron threw up his hands and looked toward the ceiling, his voice raising an octave as he said, “I apologize. I didn’t mean nothin’, Mr. Presley.”

DiAngelo left the apartment, slamming the door so hard the photograph of Elvis on the wall cocked to one side.

10

One hundred miles off the Louisiana coast. Hurricane Holly had lost some of her oomph. Still, as a trop­ical storm, she drove with tremendous force, slashing rains, and terrible thunder, submerging streets and whip­ping stop signs as if they were perched on flexible rubber.

Arriving at his apartment, stiff, sore, and semilucid from the morphine the doctors had pumped into his veins the last two days, J.D. stopped just inside the threshold. At first, he thought he had somehow walked into someone else’s place.

The air smelled of floral room deodorizers and pine disinfectant. He could see his reflection in the polished wood floor. Instead of his old drapes, which reeked of smoke, there were frilly cafe curtains on the windows. Nothing fancy. But they lent a definite hint of homeyness to the usually stark place.

Beverly dashed around him, out of the rain, and stopped, her gaze sweeping the room. Her surprise im­mediately turned into annoyance. “Seems Miss Jones has been busy.”

“Apparently.” He tossed his cigarette butt out the door just as Puddin’ appeared from under a chair and began to circle his legs.

Beverly, her arms burdened with a grocery sack, moved to the kitchen where a colorful ceramic chicken had roosted on the countertop. A Crock-Pot sat near it. As she lifted the lid, the aroma of stew wafted through the apart­ment, causing J.D.’s stomach to growl. A diet of hospital Jell-O had left him feeling ravenous.

He hadn’t seen Holly since his first night in the emer­gency room. Nor, according to Beverly, had anyone else. In his lucid moments, he had called his apartment, getting no answer, and his panic had mounted. The idea that she would be out on the streets looking for Melissa and put­ting her life in jeopardy had caused his blood pressure to soar, which had resulted in their pumping enough seda­tives into his system to send him disembodied through a spiralling universe. Now, however, relief that Holly was apparently okay left him feeling bone weary from ex­haustion.

He limped to the kitchen where Beverly was glaring into the fridge, stocked so heavily with food there was no room for the staples Beverly had bought. She slammed the door and turned to face him.

“Seems someone has set up housekeeping.”

He opened the freezer door, inspected the frozen veg­gies, then reached into the array of different-flavored fro­zen confections, extracting a grape Popsicle.

“She’s manipulating you, of course,” Beverly said.

“I hardly think stocking my fridge with Popsicles is manipulation.”

“Come on, John. Look at this place. It looks like some­thing out of Better Homes and Gardens.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

He reentered the living room and eased down on the futon that was now festooned with colorful, plump pillows and a mulberry-colored chenille throw. A vase of sun­flowers sat on the coffee table, beside an assortment of magazines—Better Homes and Gardens and Southern Living. A ceramic ashtray boasting a grinning gator sat beside them. No doubt about it, Miss Jones had been busy. She’d turned his apartment from shabby to ... froufrou. Not exactly congruent with his mood and personality these days, but he had to admit to himself that the woman’s touch not only amused him, but also pleased him.

He sucked on the Popsicle and watched Beverly sim­mer.

She moved to the bedroom door. “I thought Miss Jones was destitute. If that’s the case, I wonder where she got the money for all this.”

He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Turning, she glared at him with an expression that was unusually vindictive for the Beverly he knew. “What do you think I mean? How else does a hooker get her money?”

“That’s not very nice. I’m surprised at you.”

“I can’t believe you would become involved with a woman like her, John.”

“I’m not involved. Besides, what I do with my personal life is none of your business.”

“Gee, that sounds familiar. Seems that was your pat excuse when I warned you that Laura was going to turn your life into a shambles.”

“Don’t bring my dead wife into this.” He rubbed his throbbing temple. “Get a grip before you piss me off.” Shooting her a warning look, he added, “If you paid as much attention to your own relationship with my brother as you do to my business, maybe you wouldn’t be so miserable.”

Color drained from her face. Her eyes widened and teared.

Regret slammed him. “Hey, I’m sorry. Come here, sweetheart.”

She sat down beside him. He put his arm around her and pulled her close, so her head nestled on his shoulder. He kissed her brow. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take out my frustrations on you. I know you only want the best for me.”

“I love you, John.”

“I know.” He stroked her hair. “I love you, too.”

Lifting her head, she gazed into his eyes, the subtle scent of her perfume making his body tense. “I mean, I really love you. I’m in love with you.” She lightly touched his bruised cheek. “I’m sorry if that offends you.”

“It doesn’t offend me, Beverly. You’re not confessing anything I don’t already know.”

“I would leave Eric in a minute if I thought—”

“It’s not going to happen, honey.”

“Patrick loves you so much—”

“I’m not in love with you, Bev.”

He felt her stiffen and lurch with a sob. Holding her more tightly, he said, “You and the kids mean the world to me, sweetheart. I’m here for you when you need me. You know that. Hey, you wouldn’t like being married to me anyway. I’m moody and sloppy and generally pissed off at the world. I couldn’t keep you in the lifestyle that you’ve grown accustomed to. You’re champagne and cav­iar and I’m warm beer and Vienna sausages. You enjoy garden parties and I hate ‘em.”

She gave him a watery smile. “I could learn to like Vienna sausages.”

“No, you couldn’t. It’s one of the reasons we never hooked up in college. You were meant to be a socialite. You’ll make the perfect senator’s wife one of these days.”

“I once thought those things could make me happy, John. But they don’t. I’m only happy when I’m with you. Please...” She cupped his cheek with one hand. “Give us a chance.”

She pressed her lips against his. They were trembling and soft. Warm and moist. As her hand slid around the back of his head, she pulled him closer, deeper into the kiss.

The front door opened.

Carrying a sack of Brahms’s ice cream, Holly stood in the threshold, rain drizzling down her face. Her gaze col­lided with J.D.’s as he raised his head, shoving Beverly away out of reflex.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t realize ... I mean, I wasn’t expecting you home for another couple of hours.”

She moved to the kitchen as Beverly, her expression smug and her eyes sparkling with rekindled hope, stood and straightened her blouse.

“I thought you might enjoy ice cream for dessert, what with your ulcer. ... I’ll just put it away and get out.”

“Beverly was just leaving.” He flashed Beverly a look that made her snap up her purse and tuck it under her arm.

Holly slammed the freezer door so hard the chicken on the countertop clattered. She turned and gave Beverly a look cold enough to chill boiling water. “Please, don’t leave on my account.”

“Wouldn’t think of it.” Beverly allowed her a tight smile. “I really must go. I have to pick up Patrick from school.”

As she exited the apartment, slamming the door, J.D. winced. The Popsicle had begun to drip on his jeans, and he tossed the remainder into the gator ashtray as Holly leaned against the kitchen doorjamb and crossed her arms. Her pitch-black hair flowed over her shoulders. Her jeans were tight and faded, and she wore one of his Saints T-shirts, tucked into the jeans.

“It’s not how it looks,” he said.

“Oh?”

“There’s nothing going on between us.”

“Come on, Damascus. She had her tongue thrust so far down your throat your tonsils were gyrating in delight.”

“So I had a weak moment.”

She shrugged. “It’s really none of my business, is it?” He stood and moved toward her. “No, it’s not.” She turned back to the kitchen, proceeded to stir the stew in the Crock-Pot as he joined her, pressing close to her back and sliding his arm around her waist. Her hair smelled like magnolias and her body felt damp from the rain. He felt her stiffen as steam rose off the stew in a hot, moist cloud. “Miss me?”

“I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Why didn’t you come back to the hospital?”

“Busy, as you can see.”

“Place looks nice. Where did you get the money for all this?”

She lay down the wooden spoon, her back rigid. “Where do you think? What, no comment? You’re imag­ining I went out and turned a few tricks, Damascus?”

“I like it better when you call me John.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“You’re a beautiful woman, Holly.”

“Answer me.”

“I really don’t care where you got the money.”

She tried to move away. He pinned her against the counter, his body pressed hard against hers. “I don’t care,” he repeated, nuzzling the warm skin behind her ear.

He felt the resistance that had turned her body tense slowly leave her. “I’m sorry I hurt you. But the thought of Tyron touching you . .. made me a little crazy, I guess. I got... confused, Holly. Hell, maybe I was jealous. I don’t know.”

Her head partially turned, her hair brushing his lips. “Jealous?” The word was whispered, tremulous. Disbe­lieving. He didn’t blame her. He’d been driven crazy these last few days thinking about it, the pang of possessiveness that he felt over the woman whose soft body warmed his own in that moment.

She turned in his arms. Her wide blue eyes looked up into his, searching. Cautious. “Jealous?”

Pressing his lips lightly to her forehead, he closed his eyes. “Maybe. Yeah ... maybe. I don’t know. You drive me crazy. When you walked out on me ... I don’t know. Those few days were hell. I kept trying to convince myself that you were nothing to me but another charity case. Fine. Let you go. But somehow in a short space of time you filled up this place and it wasn’t right without you.”

Christ, he felt tired suddenly. As if the confession had drained what little reserve of strength he had. As if she sensed it, her arms slid around him, held him close, her body bracing him, holding him. Her lips brushed his cheek as she nestled against him.

“You’re exhausted, John. You should lie down.”

“No.” He held her closer, his hands rubbing her back. “Not yet.”

“You’re trembling. Come on. I’m putting you to bed.”

He suspected that his trembling had little to do with his weakness, but he followed her anyway as she took his hand and led him to the bedroom. As she sat him on the bed, she dropped to her knees and untied the laces of his joggers, her long hair sweeping over her shoulders as she removed his shoes. The scent of magnolia lifted from her and he felt a heat rush through him that had nothing to do with the dull aches in his body.

She tossed the shoes aside and looked up, her hands drifting along his thighs, warm through his jeans. Her eyes were liquid indigo pools in which he hungered to drown.

There was obliteration there—of his pain, his memories. He touched her cheek. She pulled away. “Holly.”

“Lie down. Rest.” She stood, placed her hands gently on his shoulders, and pressed him back, onto the bed.

He caught her hand—too tightly perhaps—and their gazes clashed. “Don’t leave. Please. Lie here beside me.”

“I can’t.” She shook her head. “Please, John. Don’t ask me.”

“What the hell are you afraid of?”

A spasm of emotion crossed her face. Her chin quiv­ered. “You. I’m afraid of you. I’m afraid of how you make me feel. Damn you, Damascus, just let me go. Why did you have to come looking for me?”

As she drew away again, he closed his hand more tightly on hers, drawing her back, forcing her down beside him though she refused to look at him. He held her tense body against him and stroked her hair.

“Stay. Just for a little while. You feel so damn good.”

She remained silent then. Motionless. The rain beat against the roof and slashed against the windows as light­ning shot sporadic illumination through the dim room.

As they lay there, embraced by the drone of the storm and the collecting shadows of the late afternoon, a reali­zation crept into J.D.’s thoughts as he continued to hold Holly. She believed he wanted her body, just like the oth­ers who had held her, whispered lies into her ear, games played by lonely johns who hungered only for sexual sur­cease.

Reluctantly, he released her and rolled to his back, watched the play of lightning flash in streaks over the ceiling. A long moment passed before she moved, rolled to her back as well, and looked over at him.

He grinned. “Anyone ever tell you that you look beau­tiful in shadows?”

Her lips curved. “No.”

He slid his hand over hers, closed his fingers gently around it, and looked back at the ceiling. She continued to watch him, her cheek nestled in the down pillow. Minutes ticked by, then she rolled to her side and moved closer, rested her head on his pillow, so near he could feel her breath brush his cheek.

“Feeling better?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She touched the bruise on his brow, then her fingertips drifted to the cut near his mouth, lingered there before moving slowly to ease over his lower lip. His eyes drifted closed as the touch warmed him and caused his heart to beat faster.

Careful. Careful. The last thing he needed was to lose control.

Closer. “You’re very good to me, John.” He smiled, eyes still closed. “I don’t understand why.”

“Not every man walking the face of the earth is a jerk, honey.”

Closer. Her body pressed against his. Her hand lay on his chest. Surely she could feel the fast, strong beating of his heart. Her words teased his ear.

“Would you like to kiss me?”

“Of course.”

She cupped his cheek in her hand and turned his face toward hers. No trepidation in her eyes now. Something else. “Then why don’t you?”

Moving her body partially over his, she lowered her lips to his, a feather brush that sluiced through him. He cradled her head between his hands and tipped her face, lifting his mouth against hers firmly. He parted her lips, drawing in her breath, and setting fire to his stomach. His sweat began to rise and his breathing quickened.

Christ. One kiss and he was lost. Restraint crumbling.

She drew away from the kiss, slid down his chest, her hands sliding under his shirt and tugging it up so she could press her lips against his belly, tongue twirling around his navel. He groaned, twisted his hands into the sheets, and gritted his teeth. With one flick of her tongue he’d grown hard as a crowbar and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

Her hand slid over the ridge in his jeans, then she cupped him in her palm, slid her face down to his crotch, and breathed against it. The heat made him tense. His hips rose and his legs spread to accommodate her. Every in­stinct collided in his brain, caution and testosterone a dan­gerous amalgamation that made his body shake.

What the hell was she doing?

“Holly.” He groaned it, his hands reaching for her, fin­gertips sliding through her hair.

Her head lifted and her gaze speared him. “I know what you’re doing, John.” Her lips curved as her fingers tugged at the zipper of his jeans. “I know what you want. Really. Did you think I would believe your attempts to make me trust you? Compassion. Understanding. Patience. Been there and heard it all, Damascus.”

Holly’s tongue flicked along the straining rise beneath his underwear. Her breath felt warm and moist through his cotton jockeys, and he gritted his teeth.

“A man like you couldn’t really give a damn about a woman like me.”

Fingers parted the Y fronts of his underwear and her tongue licked his engorged head, sending a jolt of white-hot fire and pain through him. Blissful pain. Consuming heat.

“Stop.” He moaned, eyes closed.

“Let’s get it over with. It’s inevitable. I owe you big-time for your kindness, so let’s stop the game playing, why don’t we?”

“Stop it.” He grabbed for her and dumped her beside him on the bed, moving his body partially over hers to arrest her attempt to escape. “Look at me, dammit. Stop that and look at me.”

He shook her. Her eyes flashed like the lightning erupt­ing through the room as he pinned her arms to the mat­tress. “Hey, we both know men think with their dicks, Holly. Sorry about that. Can’t help it. It’s that testosterone thing that screws up our judgment. When a woman goes down on a man there isn’t a whole lot we can do about it. You’re right. There’s nothing I would love more at this moment than to crawl between your legs, but I’m trying to prove something here and you’re not making it easy for me. Get it through your head that that’s not what I need from you right now.”

Taking a deep breath to control his anger, J.D. closed his eyes, briefly, feeling Holly shake beneath him. “All I want...” He swallowed. “I want your arms around me. So maybe I can sleep for the first time in years without nightmares and memories. I’ve got this gut feeling you can help me do that, Holly. Please. Just for a little while.”

With a resigned sigh, he released her and rolled away, onto his back. “My head hurts. My body hurts. I don’t want to fight with you again and end up saying something out of frustration that will make me feel guiltier than I already do. If you want to leave, get the hell away from me. I’m just too damn tired to deal with this right now.” He zipped up his jeans and turned away from her, focused on the glass balcony doors where rain ran in runnels down the panes.

Thunder rumbled.

Minutes of silence ticked by.

The bed moved and Holly’s body pressed against him. Her arm slid around his waist. Her face nestled against the back of his head. “I’m sorry,” came her whisper.

The phone jarred him awake. The bed beside him was empty. Then Holly appeared at the bedroom door holding the cat in her arms.

He reached for the phone.

“Damascus, Mallory here.”

Holly moved into the room as he listened to Mallory talk.

“Christ,” he said, drawing Holly’s gaze to his. She must have sensed the tension and dread that shot through him at Mallory’s news. “Was she murdered like the others?”

Holly gasped and turned white. “Oh God.”

He nodded. “Right. We’ll be down in half an hour.”

Gently, he hung up the phone. “It’s Melissa, isn’t it? She’s dead.”

“They’ve recovered a body ...”

Holly sank to the floor and the cat scrambled from her arms. She covered her face with her hands.

Sinking to one knee beside her, he took her in his arms, held her as she struggled to shove him away. “The body needs identifying, Holly. I’ll go—”

“Bastard. That lousy bastard—”

“If it’s Melissa—”

Her head snapped up, her face smeared with mascara. “They don’t know for sure?”

“Not until I’ve IDed her.”

“I’m going with you.”

He touched her tear-streaked cheek. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. She’s ... been dead a while.”

“I’m going with you,” she repeated. “Melissa was my friend, dammit. Not yours.”

By the time they reached the morgue, the rain was falling in sheets and rising fast on the streets, which were virtually empty. Thunder crashed as they stepped into the reception area where they were met by Mallory and his wife. They were surprised to see Holly with J.D. and shot him a concerned look before opening the double doors, allowing them access to the morgue.

“The young woman was found in someone’s backyard at eight-twenty this morning. Brought up by flood waters from what we can ascertain.” Mallory glanced again at Holly, whose face was as white as the clean smock Janice was wearing. Holly hadn’t spoken since they had left J.D.’s apartment, hadn’t so much as flinched at the lashing of wind-driven rain and the explosions of lightning. Her eyes appealed as glazed as blue glass.

J.D. understood the feeling, the cold shock and dread that was filling her up, the frantic holding on to a sliver of hope that the body would prove to be someone else’s. He wanted to drag her back out into the rain, force her into his car, and lock the door until this was over. But, most of all, he wanted to protect her from the nightmares that would follow.

“Dead around three days, perhaps slightly longer,” Jan­ice said. “Slight putrefaction but not so severe as to ham­per identification. Cause of death is strangulation. Obviously, this doesn’t appear to be the same signature as the others, unless our serial killer is changing his nor­mal routine to throw us off.”

The diener, a tall, overly thin African American man wearing a green jumpsuit, stood as they entered the room, his long face expressionless. Janice nodded and he moved to the box and opened it, slid out the slab containing the sheet-covered body, then stepped back.

J.D. turned to Holly where she stood, frozen, her gaze locked on the covered form.

“Get the hell out of here,” he said softly. “You don’t need or want this kind of image to haunt you for the rest of your life, sweetheart. Trust me.”

“I’m her only true friend. Her only family. I... have to do this.”

He looked away, then nodded to Janice and braced him­self.

Janice stepped forward and eased the cloth from the cadaver’s face.

“Oh God,” Holly sobbed. “It’s not her.”

He sits in the shadows of the locker, feeling the thrust of the storm throughout his body. He does so enjoy the power of it. The electricity tingles his nerve endings, fills him with a euphoria not unlike that which he experiences from the terror he can see in Melissa’s eyes.

He has told her that he intends to kill her now. A lie, of course. He is enjoying the drawn-out torture. It is new to him, this putting off of death. It is unending arousal. When the orgasm comes, it will be the best of his life. As electrifying as the lightning plundering the earth and sky.

Closing his eyes, he feels the building shudder from the wind-driven waves against the pilings below. At any mo­ment, the old building could cave. Yet it won’t. He won’t allow it. Not yet. He is one with the universe. He holds the power of the cyclone in his palm. It infuses him with Godlike control—domination over life and death.

At last, he stands, sways from side to side as the floor moves beneath him. With knife in hand, he approaches her, smiling as her eyes widen and her body writhes, wrists and ankles bleeding from the thin wires that he has bound her with these last few days. The red-gold hair that had felt smooth and soft as silk looks dull, the tangles like a rat’s nest cushioning her head. A shame. It was her glorious hair that had first attracted him to her. Long and flowing, giving her a virginal look that he had found stim­ulating. A virginal whore. No doubt the perverts who bought her did so because they lusted for children.

Bending, he slowly peels the tape back from her raw lips. “Would you like to scream?” he asks. “Go ahead. I won’t stop you.”

She tries, but hen voice is weak and drowned out by the rain pummeling the metal roof. He lightly places the knife against her throat, the keen blade biting just enough so blood trickles over her pale and bruised flesh. The flash of fear in her bloodshot eyes causes his blood to warm and sing in his veins. Fear is good. So very, very good. Fear invites respect. He has learned this from the others who did not respect him until he introduced them to fear. Oh yes, their smugness and contempt was soon trans­formed with the first flash of his knife.

“Beg,” he whispers.

“Please.”

“It won’t hurt for long, Melissa. Pretty Melissa.”

“Please... don’t hurt me.”

“You’re the prettiest of them so far. Such wonderful breasts and lovely eyes. I think of them often, when I’m alone. Perhaps ...” He ran the tip of the blade along her cheek, to the tender skin below her right eye. “Perhaps I’ll cut out your eyes and keep them for a souvenir. Some­thing to remember you by. It would be a shame for them to rot along with your head in the bottom of the bayou.”

As the knife tip bit into her skin, her mouth flew open in a soundless wail. The beautiful sensation streaked through him—rousing his penis so intensely he thought he would burst.

“Pig,” she sneers, her eyes suddenly wild with fury. “Worthless, stupid pig.”

He freezes, stares at her mouth that has spat such vile and villainous words.

“Moron. Freaking imbecile, just kill me and get it over with. You’re sick and disgusting. You can’t even get it up like any normal man.”

Stumbling back, as if from a blow, he trembles. Vomit rises in his throat. Control frays—pop, pop—like a splin­tering rubber band. The thunder centers in his head, mind splitting, and he drops the knife, covering his ears with his shaking hands to shield them from her accusations.

“Bitch,” he groans, running at her, falling on her. He drives his fist into her mouth, her lips exploding beneath his knuckles. “Say my name, bitch. Say it.” He slams her again so she bucks beneath him. Her throat gurgles. “Say it.”

“God,” she cries. “God!”

Arriving back at the apartment, J.D. coaxed Holly into bed. She was lost someplace between shock and relief that the murder victim had not been Melissa. Still shaking. Dazed. The bloated body of the Jane Doe she had viewed would continue to trouble her, regardless that it hadn’t been Melissa. No one ever forgot their first cadaver. Not for their entire life.

At last, she drifted to sleep.

The doorbell rang.

He answered the door to find Jerry Costos, soaked, his hands jammed into his trouser pockets. J.D. hadn’t had a face-to-face with his ex-best friend since the afternoon Jerry had asked for his resignation from the D.A.’s office. His first instinct was to slug him. That was fast eclipsed by a joy that surprised him. He had hated Costos with a force that had been equaled only by the extreme closeness they had shared during their college days, followed by the many grueling hours they had worked together in the D.A.’s office. He had hoped never to see him again. He hadn’t wanted to be reminded of the loss he’d felt over Jerry’s decision to prosecute Gonzalez as the French Quarter killer.

“What the hell do you want?”

“You going to let me in? I’m drowning out here.”

“Why should I?”

“Come on, J.D. It’s time we talked.”

“You’re four years too late.”

He proceeded to close the door in Jerry’s face. Costos braced his weight against it, gave it a hard shove so J.D. was forced to stumble back, allowing Jerry to enter the apartment. For an eternal moment, they stood nose-to-nose while thunder shook the walls around them.

“You look like hell,” Jerry said.

“You can go to hell.”

“I didn’t come here to fight with you.”

“Of course you did. You’d have to be stupid to think you could show up here and I wouldn’t beat the shit out of you.”

“Fine. You want to take a punch at me? Go ahead. I guess I deserve it. If it will make you feel better.”

“Don’t tell me you’re only now feeling the bite of conscience.”

Jerry turned away, ran one hand through his dark, wet hair. Jerry Costos was one of Louisiana’s most eligible and sought-after bachelors. Tall, good-looking. The foot­ball stud type. He was still good-looking, but the last years had carved a hardness to his features that was undeniable.

“I heard from Mallory about your assault... among other things,” Jerry said.

“The murders?”

He nodded.

“Figured that would bring you around. So how does it feel to know you had a hand in executing the wrong man for the French Quarter killings?”

J.D. closed the door and leaned back against it as Cos­tos paced the room. “Then again, you’ve known it all along, haven’t you, Jerry? Your resigning from the D.A.’s office was evidence enough. You son of a bitch, you rolled over for someone. Who was it?”

“I swear, J.D. The evidence proved—”

“That Gonzalez was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Hell, even Anna told you—”

“Profilers are not infallible, Damascus.”

J.D. might have laughed had he not been simmering with anger. Anna Travelli was one of the FBI’s sharpest agents—Hell on Wheels Travelli, the NOPD had nick­named her during the first Quarter murders. Had Killroy actually listened to her, Gonzalez would still be alive, and the real serial killer on death row.

“So how is Anna?” J.D. asked.

Jerry dropped onto the futon. “Fine, I guess. You know Anna. She comes and goes. The job has always come first with her.”

“Problems?”

“Yeah. She still refuses to marry me.”

J.D. nodded, not surprised. Anna was FBI through and through. Quantico’s highest-ranking female agent in the history of the force. “She’s damn good at her job, Jerry.”

Resting his head back against the wall, Costos stared at the ceiling. “Okay, I admit that I was pressured to put the case to bed.”

“By whom?”

“Mayor Bixby. The governor—your father. And Sen­ator Strong. He was running for reelection and was con­cerned that the negativity of the ongoing investigation was going to hurt him. Face it. The national publicity was decimating tourism. But I swear to you, J.D., I honestly believed at the time that we had the right man. Besides, there were no more murders after Gonzalez was arrested. And it wasn’t as if Gonzalez put up much of a fight. He was going to prison, regardless, due to his attempted mur­der of Anna. The jackass actually got a hard-on over all the publicity. He was a nobody who suddenly found him­self in the limelight.”

J.D. limped to a chair and eased into it. His head throbbed like hell. He wanted to curl up beside Holly and sleep. The last thing he wanted was to debate Costos’s screwup and open up more emotional wounds.

Jerry leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. His dark eyes looked deeply into J.D.’s own. “There hasn’t been a day that I haven’t thought about you and your family. Of how you’ve suffered.”

“Thank God for small favors.”

“You’ve got every right to hate my guts. But I wish you wouldn’t. I’ve missed you, Damascus.”

“Yeah? Well, I haven’t given you a second thought, Costos, other than occasionally wanting to kill you with my bare hands.”

“We made one hell of a team. There wasn’t a defense attorney out there who didn’t piss his pants when going up against us. Had we been prosecuting O.J. Simpson, that creep would never have walked for those murders.”

“Old news, Jerry. Why are you here?”

“Cut to the chase, right?” He nodded. “After leaving the D.A.’s office, I did some snooping of my own on Tyron Johnson. I still don’t believe he was involved with the murders of your family, J.D. And whether you want to believe it or not, I still think Laura was killed by the same man who was butchering those women.”

“Wrong place at the wrong time again.”

Jerry nodded. “We’re never going to know why she was at the park that night. But she was. Perhaps the killer mistook her for a hooker, then discovered the kids—”

“The M.O. is all wrong, Jerry. The killer always mur­dered the victims in their own apartments. There was a ritual he went through. Torture before death. He toyed with them sometimes for hours. Not in Laura’s case. There were men who testified to jogging by that area shortly before the time of the killing. They hadn’t seen or heard anything. Janice Mallory established that my wife was killed by a stab wound to her heart. No long, drawn-out bleeding to death before he butchered her.”

“Johnson had an alibi for that night. Christ, give up this vigilante crusade against Tyron, J.D., before he puts you down. Let the department do its job.”

“From what I see, they aren’t doing a hell of a lot.” He shook his head. “They would rather not find the killer at all if it means the truth gets out to the public. The rami­fications would end Strong’s political career. Gonzalez’s family would sue the state for millions . .. and win. So the department is going to stick its head up its ass and play dead.”

“What benefit is there in letting the public know about this? It’ll paralyze this city with panic and open a lot of wounds that I’m afraid you aren’t capable of dealing with.”

“I would run my arms and legs through a meat grinder if it meant finding the man who killed my family, Costos. You think I don’t want it to end?” He gave a sharp laugh and shook his head. “When I allow myself to believe, just for a moment, that maybe it wasn’t Johnson who killed my family for revenge, I suspect every son of a bitch I see. If it’s not Johnson, then the bastard is living a normal life, maybe with a wife and kids, enjoying Christmas and birthdays, kissing his wife good night and playing football with his son.”

J.D. closed his eyes, tightly, and swallowed. “Why my kids, Jerry? Even if they happened to see him killing Laura, what were the chances they could ID him? They were practically babies, for God’s sake. It was pitch-black out there. Christ, as prosecutors, we never made a case on the testimony of young children. They aren’t reliable.”

“A panicked killer isn’t going to stop long enough to understand that.” Jerry stood and walked to J.D. His face looked tight with emotion. “I screwed up, John. We all did. I may no longer be in a position of power, but I swear to you, I’m going to move heaven and earth to help find the man who slaughtered your family.”

“Yeah? Then talk to the D.A. Convince him to get Anna back on this case.”

“Christ. What makes you think I can convince the D.A. to pull Anna in on this case again?”

“C’mon, Jerry. Everyone in this town knows the D.A. doesn’t fart without getting your advice first. You might have resigned from the office but everyone is aware that George Billings is little more than your shadow. Anna tried to tell you Gonzalez wasn’t your man. Had she been allowed just a little more time—”

“I nearly lost her last time—”

“She stepped over the line last time ... took too big a risk.”

Jerry turned away.

“You owe me,” J.D. said to his back. “You owe the women who’ve already died, and you owe it to the victim out there he’s sharpening up his knife right now to kill. Take a trip to the morgue and check out the bodies of Cherry Brown and Tyra Smith and tell me you won’t help to get Anna back on this case. Or better yet . ..”

He left the chair and entered the bedroom where Holly appeared to be sleeping deeply. He extracted Laura’s cor­oner’s file from the desk drawer and returned to Jerry, the file opened to display his wife’s crime scene and autopsy photos.

“This is the memory I live with every second of my life, Jerry.”

He flinched and looked away. “Jesus. What the hell are you doing with that?”

“Inspiration.”

“You bastard.” Jerry shook his head. “This is the kind of crap that made you the best damn assistant prosecutor in this country. I was an ass to ask for your resignation, John. I’m sorry. Will you ever forgive me?”

“Yeah. Help me find my family’s killer, and I’ll forgive you.”

Lying in the deep shadows of J.D.’s bedroom, the rain a constant drum on the roof, Holly had pretended sleep, her drowsy thoughts focused on the conversation between two old friends. She had tried hard to keep the coroner photos of J.D.’s wife from entering her mind. But she couldn’t. Not when every word out of his mouth while discoursing with Costos bled with grief. They literally shook with it, the pain. The heartbreak. The nightmare.

Standing in the morgue, steeling herself to identify her friend, she had no doubt experienced only a small portion of the dread that he had had that night not so long ago. To look upon the bodies of his family—dear God, how could a human being survive such heartbreak and horror? To live with those dreadful images every minute of every day, branded into every waking and sleeping hour in his mind’s eye and heart.

At last the voices faded. But for the rain, there was silence. No blaring traffic horns. No distant wailing of a saxophone from some street-corner musician.

Holly sat up, slid her legs from the bed, and rubbed her eyes. Every bone and muscle from her toes to her temples throbbed with tension. As if someone had bludgeoned her.

She swayed as she stood. Cautious, she moved to the bedroom door.

Damascus sat in a chair in a pool of lamplight, elbows on his knees, his face buried in his hands. His wife’s folder was lying open on the floor.

He groaned and shook, fighting the emotions welling inside him.

Holly moved to him, eased to her knees before him, closed the file, and slid it away. Gently, tentatively, she touched his dark hair.

As if the touch had been the catalyst, the groan became a sob that tore up from the very heart of him. The words poured forth, a ragged, desperate sound of torment.

“Ah God, this is all my fault. Holly. All of it.” He rocked, his fingers twisting into his hair. “I should have let her go. She wanted a divorce. I wouldn’t give her one. I wanted it to work. I couldn’t lose my kids. Christ, I loved them so much. Besides my job, they were the only thing that meant anything to me.”

He raised his head and his streaming eyes looked at her with such mad desperation she felt her heart stop. “She would have taken them away—to Milwaukee, to live with her parents. I should have let her. They would all be alive now.

“I didn’t want to fail, Holly. I didn’t want to hear from my father ‘I told you so.’ The bastard didn’t approve of us. Said it would never work. She wasn’t from the right kind of family. Actually disowned me for doing the right thing and marrying her. Hasn’t spoken to me in years because of it.

“It was the first time in my life I didn’t bow to his demands. Hell, I didn’t even want to be a lawyer. But he wanted us, me and Eric, to follow in his footsteps. He envisioned our stampeding our way through politics—all the way to the White House. The daughter of a used car salesman, who was forced to drop out of college because I knocked her up, wouldn’t portray the proper image for a prospective First Lady.”

He sank back in the chair, his shoulders sagging, his eyes staling off at nothing. “If I had only come home a day earlier. I could have, Holly. I needed time. I knew as soon as I came home that the arguing would start again. She wanted a divorce. I didn’t want to deal with it.”

“You didn’t know,” Holly said softly, her own eyes tearing and her heart hurting so badly for him she thought it would break.

“I gave her everything, except what she needed. I didn’t love her. I mean ... I wasn’t in love with her. I cared for her. How can you not care for the mother of your chil­dren?”

J.D. closed his eyes and released a heavy breath. “I’m so damn tired of thinking. Of hurting. Regretting. I keep seeing their sweet faces, hearing their laughter. Sometimes at night... I swear to God I hear Lisa calling me. I feel her touch me. Butterfly kisses on my cheek. God, make it go away.”

Covering his ears with his hands, his face ravaged by fury, he wept, “I want to kill that son of a bitch. Tyron did it. I don’t care what the hell everyone else says.”

He jumped from the chair, knocking Holly aside, and staggered to the bedroom. Sinking to the floor, Holly stared after him, his pain resonating through her, her own tears scalding her cheeks. How did one comfort a man in such pain? He needed someone to hold him, to kiss away his sorrow, to soothe the horrible raw wound in his soul.

Make it go away.

God, how she wished she could.

She looked up as he reentered the room, gun in hand as he moved toward the front door.

“What are you doing?” She scrambled to her feet.

“I’m going to do what I should have done four years ago.”

Throwing open the door, he vanished into the gray sheet of driving rain.

Her legs felt leaden as she moved, stumbled to the door, sound lodged in her throat along with her heart. “Don’t,” she cried brokenly. “Oh God, John, don’t. Please don’t do it!”

She ran down the steps, whipping wind and driving rain punching the breath from her. Shielding her face from the deluge, she ran past him, stood between Damascus and his car door. “Don’t do this. Please, give me the gun and listen to me.”

He shook his head and shouted through the rain. “Get the hell out of here, Holly. I can’t take it anymore. That son of a bitch has destroyed too many lives, including yours. He deserves to be exterminated, and if the cops won’t do it, I will.”

“Nothing is ever going to take away the pain of your loss. It was ... horrible. So tragic. But killing Tyron won’t bring them back. It won’t rectify the injustice of it all. And what if you’re wrong. John? Listen to me!”

She blinked the spray of rain from her eyes. “You have friends who will help you, John. Jerry Costos. Detective Mallory. Me. Please, let us help you. You’re loved and needed by so many. Your mother who adores you. Bev­erly. Think of Patrick. Think about what this would do to them.” She swallowed. “I need you, John. Desperately. God, you’re the only friend I have in the world right now besides Melissa.”

There came a sudden, ear-shattering explosion of thun­der.

“I need you,” she repeated more softly. “Please.”

Little by little, as the rain drove down on him, J.D. relaxed. He stood with his head down, a man emotionally exhausted.

Holly moved to him, opening her arms to embrace him, hold him as he sank against her, gripping fiercely, one hand tangled in her hair as his body shook with sobs.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “Cry all you want. Poor baby. Poor darling. Lean on me, John. Let me help you. I so want to help you.”

They held one another, drenched by the deluge as light­ning skirted across the sky.

11

They lay together on the bed, J.D. curled in Holly’s arms, his head resting on her shoulder. She held him fiercely, her fingers gripping his wet shirt, her mouth pressed into his damp hair... aching to absorb the pain from his heart, assure him there would, someday, be sun­light after his storm.

Little by little his body had relaxed against her. His trembling had ceased. She needed desperately to drift away with him. Not yet. Not until she was certain that he had finally surrendered to sleep.

As she felt the easy rise and fall of his breathing, his heart beating against her, she tried to recall a time when she had lain so by a man, enjoyed the embrace of his arms around her.

Never.

The pleasure of it was boundless, the joy of it brought tears to her eyes. For that moment in time, she mattered to someone. She had made a difference. It was what she wanted most in her life, to make a difference to someone. She had come back to New Orleans to help Melissa. Pray, dear God, that she hadn’t been too late. But if she was ...

If she was, she would content herself in knowing that she had been John’s port in a storm. The hand extended to him in a turbulent sea of despair.

A man with no hope.

She understood completely. The emptiness. The burden of guilt for mistakes. Broken spirits and dreams. She had been spiritually as low as a human being could get. But she was proof that beyond even the most cataclysmic storm, there is fair weather. She would make him see that. She wouldn’t allow him to give up yet. Not ever.

Shutting her eyes, holding him closer, she felt a hot streak of awareness sluice through her. What was she thinking? She had no future with this man. Idiotic to even imagine it. She was a woman with a past that no one aside from a saint or God himself would forgive. The realization that she actually felt something for him other than pity staggered her.

Oh no. She wouldn’t let herself go there. He might have nudged open that long closed and locked door to her heart, but she wouldn’t allow him in. She wouldn’t invite the kind of emotions that inspired the sort of daydreams nor­mal women with normal lives confessed to friends over coffee.

If she was smart, she would get out now. Right now. Nip the fantasy in the bud. She had always been pragmatic regarding her future. Accepted it, for the most part. She was a realist, after all. Most mothers ingrained in their daughters’ heads, “You can love a rich man as easily as a poor man.” She, on the other hand, had long since ac­knowledged that she could a love a poor man as easily as a rich man. It wouldn’t matter if he sold used shoes from street corners, as long as he loved her. No need in setting her standards too high, she told herself long ago.

Thinking that she stood any chance with a man like Damascus was ludicrous.

Once Holly assured herself that John was asleep, she slid from beneath him and moved to the living room. Pud­din’ lay curled on the futon, amid the pretty pillows and chenille throw. She glanced around the room, transformed from the dreary, unkempt apartment of a depressed, broke bachelor. The pride she had experienced from the make­over rushed through her again. Home sweet home. Pretty and comfortable. Nothing fancy. But... nice. The kind of place she wouldn’t mind settling down in.

The idea that he had actually believed that she had turned a few tricks to get the money to do it sliced at her heart. But she wasn’t surprised. Retired hookers were ex­actly that. Hookers. She may as well go through the rest of her life with a giant blazing P branded on her forehead. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Not nearly the worst of it. A decent man, like Damascus, might, just might, forgive her prostitute transgressions.

But he would never forgive her for murder.

J.D. awoke, confused, with a splitting headache. Then he remembered the night before. Christ. He hadn’t come that close to killing Tyron since the day he’d IDed his family at the morgue, since the obses­sion to find and kill his family’s murderer had taken him over.

Not that it hadn’t come rushing back over him occa­sionally. The shrinks who had counseled him had assured him that wasn’t unusual. Antidepressants had helped for a while. But, eventually, he had weaned himself off of them because he didn’t like their emotion-numbing qual­ities. He needed the piercing pain of his loss to keep him centered and focused.

But, he had to admit to himself, last night the pain and fury had crushed down on him more heavily than usual. Why? The beating he’d just taken hadn’t helped. Lying there in bed for two days had given him too much time to think, to dwell on his hatred for Tyron Johnson—his manipulation, control, and abuse of women. The not-so-subtle threats the creep had made to J.D. each time J.D. found a reason to drag Tyron’s sorry ass into court. The cruel notes of consolation the bastard had sent regarding his family’s deaths.

Then Costos had shown up on his doorstep. Something had triggered inside J.D.

He couldn’t explain it. He never could. It was there, the grief and fury. And it had overwhelmed him in that moment. The grief counselors had warned him about it and preached that if he didn’t let them go—his family— the wounds would have no chance of healing. But he sim­ply wasn’t ready to let them go. He might never be ready.

Sitting up on the edge of the bed, he glanced at the clock. Seven-thirty.

“You okay?”

He looked up. Holly stood in the doorway, her expres­sion concerned. “Yeah,” he replied and nodded.

“May called to remind you that you have a court case at ten.”

“Christ.”

“To quote her, ‘You best get your butt down there or Judge Patterson will find you in contempt ... again.’”

“I’m not prepared.”

She grinned. “Damascus, you could show up in court deaf, blind, and dumb and still win your case. Don’t forget how brilliant you are.”

“I was. Not anymore.”

“Sure you are. Get dressed. I’m making you a decent breakfast. You’re going to be at that courthouse by nine a.m. if I have to drive you there myself. Oh, and your mother called reminding you of dinner tomorrow at her place. She invited me as well.”

He grinned. “She likes you.”

“Nice lady. But I declined. I’m not the dinner party kind of gal.”

“I want you to go.”

She left the room and J.D. stood, took a deep breath to clear his head, and followed her.

Holly had prepared eggs, bacon, and grits with a side of buttered toast and a glass of milk. He tried to remember the last time he’d eaten a decent morning meal. He usually skipped it completely or made a quick stop at the local convenience store for coffee and a donut. The aroma of food made his stomach growl.

At the table, he flashed her a look as she poured him a cup of coffee. “You’re spoiling me.”

She smiled. “Enjoy it. We all deserve to be spoiled now and again.”

He reached out and closed his fingers around her wrist. “Thanks. For last night. For this morning. For every­thing.”

She shrugged as her cheeks flushed, and she avoided his gaze with a shy lowering of her lashes. “What are friends for?”

She pulled away and returned to the coffeepot, poured herself a cup before turning to face him again. “So tell me about your case. Something scandalous, I hope.”

“A custody case. It’s getting ugly. I really would like you to go with me tomorrow, Holly. To my mom’s.”

“Don’t change the subject. Besides, to quote a gazillion women before me ...” She giggled. “I haven’t a thing to wear!”

“I’ll buy you something pretty.” She buttered her toast, then put it down. “I can’t. Please don’t ask me again.”

“Why?”

“I’m not... I’d feel uncomfortable. Besides ... Bev­erly will be there—”

“I told you, there’s nothing going on between us.”

“She’s in love with you, John.”

“I’m not in love with her. And even if I was, Christ, she’s my brother’s wife. Eric and I might not particularly care for one another, but there’s lines a man doesn’t cross. My mom likes you. She told me so.”

“She doesn’t know me. How can she like me?”

“How can anyone not like you?” He grinned. Averting her eyes, she focused on her toast. “I can think of a few reasons.”

“Maybe you think too much.”

They sat in silence as J.D. dove into the scrambled eggs and Holly nibbled on toast. The fog had begun to lift from his brain and he was beginning to feel human again. He glanced at Holly.

“I spoke with Mallory about Melissa. He’s taking the CSI to her apartment. Not a great deal they can do but go over the place for any blood evidence. He’ll speak again with the neighbors. Maybe they’ll be more willing to talk to a cop than they were to me. A badge has a tendency to shake the truth out of people.”

Her eyes lit up. “That’s great.”

“Don’t get excited. Whatever happened to Melissa, if something has happened to her, it probably took place on her way to meet her john that night. At that point, about all they can do is circulate her photograph. Question any­one in the area who might have seen her. Any ideas in that regard? Places she hung out frequently?”

“She occasionally worked the River Rat Bar on Bour­bon Street. Not often. No need to, really. She had her regulars. An occasional tourist.”

“Names, phone numbers of her regulars?”

She nodded. “But she kept it with her always.”

“They’ll question Tyron, of course.”

Her face paled. “They won’t tell him who reported her missing, will they? That’s confidential, isn’t it?”

“Of course.” he replied softly.

There was something in the way the desperation had widened her eyes that invited that niggling feeling of fa­miliarity to tickle the back of his mind. At some point in his career, he and Holly Jones had crossed paths. He was certain of it.

Holly had been right. By eleven-thirty J.D. had wrapped up his case nicely. His client had attained full custody of her kids and her creep of a husband sat sim­mering in his chair, cursing his attorney for his incom­petence. J.D. recognized trouble when he saw it, and Samuel Pierpoint was going to be trouble. He was a time bomb ready to explode. His defiance of the restraining order his wife had filed against him was evidence enough.

As his client shared tears and hugs with her parents, J.D. shut his briefcase and glanced up at Judge Patterson, whose eyes were narrowed and his mouth set in a grim line.

“Mr. Damascus, approach the bench, please.” Here we go, he thought.

“As I recall, the last time you stood before my bench I told you that if you didn’t cut your hair and get rid of that stud in your ear, I would find you in contempt. Your appearance is blatantly disrespectful to this court and your client.”

“No disrespect intended, Your Honor, but I don’t see how my hair and stud have got anything to do with my capabilities to adequately represent my clients.”

“I find it offensive.”

“I don’t.”

The judge sat back in his chair. “One last warning. If you appear before me in such a fashion again, I will hold you in contempt. Understood?”

“Understood, Your Honor.”

“That being said, I congratulate you on your case. Fine job.”

“I suspect we haven’t heard the last of Mr. Pierpoint.”

“Unfortunately, I feel you’re right. Watch your back with that one. He’s a nut.”

“I suspect nut is putting it mildly, Your Honor.”

They exchanged nods and grins, then J.D. left the court­room to be greeted by Penny Pierpoint and her jubilant parents. Penny was a cute, petite, middle-aged woman whose crooked nose was evidence of her husband’s abuse. The beating had hospitalized her for a week the year be­fore. She hugged him and wept on his suit coat. Her body shook.

“How can I thank you enough, Mr. Damascus?”

“Be happy, Penny. Love your kids. Get the hell out of New Orleans and don’t look back.”

Her gray-haired mother laughed. “You needn’t worry about that. Their bags are packed and first thing in the morning we’re on a plane to California. She and the chil­dren will live with us until she can get on her feet and find a job.”

He thought of telling them all that two thousand miles wouldn’t make much difference to a man like Pierpoint. One way or another, he would insinuate himself into their lives again. But no point in stating the obvious. They knew Sam would be a bone in their throats until hell froze over. Let them enjoy this moment of victory for as long as it lasted.

“Well, well,” came the voice behind him. “J.D. Da­mascus.”

He turned and looked down into Anna Travelli’s spar­kling eyes. “I’ll be damned.”

“Nice job in there. There isn’t an attorney alive who can work the opposition like you, except for Jerry, of course. Buy an old friend a cup of coffee?”

“I have a few things to tie up at the office. If you can tolerate May’s chicory, you’ve got a deal.”

One couldn’t appraise Anna Travelli and believe for an instant that she had the biggest pair of brass balls of any agent working for the FBI. Tall, slender, and fem­inine, her face looked more worthy of a Vogue cover than a cop’s shield. She could have passed as Nicole Kidman’s twin. Glorious red hair and bone structure, skin as smooth and pale as a magnolia petal with just a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. She didn’t so much as wince as she sipped May’s black, bitter coffee. Then again, having spent the last ten years drinking the garbage served up in police departments across the country, he was not sur­prised.

“You look like hell.” She regarded him with those eyes that were as unnerving as they were beautiful. “Fighting again?”

J.D. touched the stitches on his chin. “Something like that.”

“Jerry filled me in on the situation. I refrained from rubbing it in his face. I’m sure he’s feeling shitty enough as it is. Just spent the last couple of hours with the D.A. and Chief Killroy. Obviously the department is keeping this as quiet as possible. One leak of these killings and heads are going to roll. Which probably wouldn’t be a bad thing, considering. I just don’t want Jerry’s to be one of them.”

“I can’t see any way around it, Anna.”

She nodded and shrugged. “He’s a big boy. I think he can handle it. Truth is, it will be a relief for him. Whether you want to believe it or not, he’s suffered these last few years from a bad case of conscience ... not to mention missing you.” She smiled. “So how’s it going? Getting on with your life?”

“I’m still here. I guess so.”

“Anyone special in your life?”

“A woman, you mean?”

She nodded.

He thought of Holly. In the past, when asked that ques­tion, he had readily responded, “No.” But the denial now froze on his lips, and he felt stunned by it. Flustered. And he wasn’t a man who was easily flustered. At least when it came to the women he had occasionally dated these last few years.

“Maybe,” he replied.

“Anyone I know?”

“I doubt it.”

“Potentially serious?”

He shrugged.

“Okay.” She smiled. “Damascus the enigma. Always a man of few words, except in the courtroom.”

“Loose lips sink ships ... or something clichйd like that.”

“So, we get down to business. The state executed the wrong man. Or did it? Can we be certain our perp isn’t a copycat?”

“The signature is identical. He tortures first, then mur­ders. Decapitation, evisceration. As you well know, there were certain aspects of the killer’s signature that were never made public.”

She nodded, her look becoming distant. She was headed for that place where few other people ever ventured. Or knew how to. Into the killer’s mind and psyche. When Quantico had first dumped her in the NOPD’s lap, she had been confronted by total resistance from the depart­ment. They considered profilers just one rung above psy­chics. Not that there wasn’t a little of that going on as well in Anna’s mind, but she was bright enough not to talk about it.

“We’ve established that our perp is a domineering killer. He gets his rocks off inspiring fear in his victim. It gives him a feeling of control and power that he oth­erwise lacks in his life. It’s been established that our freak doesn’t have sex with his victims. That doesn’t mean he isn’t experiencing orgasmic fulfillment. He probably mas­turbates during the torture. Uses a condom to avoid leav­ing semen that could be used to DNA him. Most likely, he undresses before he butchers her to avoid blood on his clothes—or he brings a change of clothes. But he’s bright enough not to shower, knowing the CSI unit could pick up any pubic hair from the drain that could be later DNA-tested to nail him. He simply washes his hands of blood, redresses, and quietly leaves. Discards the clothes else­where and showers at home, or someplace else.

“He may or may not have had sex with these prostitutes in the past. He may choose them at random, but I doubt it. He watches her for a while. There is something about her that intrigues him. As I recall, most of the girls he killed four years ago were very young. Not hardened as badly by the life. Makes sense. A younger individual would be more intimidated by his threats. The greater her fear, the greater his pleasure.

“He’s highly organized, obviously. Probably college-educated and highly intelligent. Holds a white-collar job. Socially competent. He probably was an only child, but if there were siblings, he was the favorite. But only be­cause he kissed ass a lot. More than he cared to. Still does in his line of work. In short, he’s a yes man. Possibly looked over for promotions he thought he deserved. Prob­ably good-looking. Could charm the rattlers off a snake.”

Anna set aside her cup of cold coffee, her dark green eyes unblinking as she looked at J.D. “Which brings me to Laura and my real reason for this visit.”

He frowned.

“I’ve given this a lot of thought these past years. Toyed with it, really.” She cleared her throat, unnaturally dis­composed for a woman whose bluntness and getting to the point was renown. “I believe she knew him, J.D. They may have even been lovers.”

The blood drained from his face as he sank back in his chair.

“I’m sorry,” she said, briefly averting her eyes. “But nothing else makes sense. Why she was out that late, at the park. They had planned an assignation. She couldn’t find a sitter and took the kids with her, leaving them asleep in the back of the car. Something happened to set him off. Maybe she told him she wanted to end it. This type of individual wouldn’t take kindly to getting dumped. Remember, he must be in control of the situation at all times, and if not, he goes off.”

She shifted in her chair. “Your marriage was in trouble. She wouldn’t be the first woman to look for love in all the wrong places.”

“Christ.” He groaned as the onslaught of memories rushed over him. Anna’s sympathetic voice drifted to him.

“Try to think back. For any clue that she had something going on on the side. Did she stay out late? Get phone calls from strangers? Behave nervously or guiltily?”

“No.” He shook his head, heat returning to his face to make him sweat.

“Your son was in school during the day. What about Lisa?”

“Day care half a day three times a week.” He took a deep drink of his cold coffee, shivering from the bitter­ness. “We argued about it. I thought she was too young. She was always picking up colds, and ... Excuse me.”

He left his chair and exited the office, made his way to the men’s room down the hall. He closed the door and locked it, braced his hands on each side of the sink and tried his best not to vomit. Not possible. Not Laura. Not with another man. She wasn’t the kind.

Right. Where was his head? He was a damn lawyer, for Christ’s sake. There wasn’t a woman out there whose head couldn’t be turned by some smooth-talking son of a bitch, particularly when she was in a bad marriage. Feel­ing unloved and unappreciated. Her husband burying him­self in his work instead of his home life. Three quarters of the divorces today were due to infidelity. What made him believe his was any different?

Could he have been that blind?

There came a knock on the door, and May called out, “You okay in there?”

“Yeah.” He turned on the water and splashed his face.

“Ms. Travelli left. Said she’ll contact you later. And you got a phone call from Chief Killroy. Says it’s impor­tant.”

J.D. dried his face and opened the door. May regarded him skeptically. “Damn. You white as a ghost. Should I call a doctor again?”

“Hell, no.” As he returned to his office, May followed, droning on about case files, clients’ unpaid balances, and the escalating eviction threats from their landlord.

“And your mother called. Said she wants you to bring Holly to dinner tomorrow. And Patrick has been sus­pended from school for a week. Call Beverly as soon as possible. Woman is hysterical.”

He fell into the chair, reached for the phone, and called Travis Killroy. “Damascus here. What’s up, Chief?”

“Then I take it you haven’t heard.”

J.D. didn’t like the sound of that. “Heard what?”

“Sam Pierpoint just walked into his ex-wife’s house and blew her away, as well as their kids, her parents, and himself. So much for restraining orders.”

12

Jean Lancaster was pissed. Then again, she was always pissed. She never spoke below a level that didn’t force J.D. to hold the phone away from his ear.

“The bastard has cleaned out my checking account. All of it. What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

He only half listened, still too numbed by the news about the Pierpoints. He kept seeing the joy in Penny’s eyes, the relief in her parents’. And the kids. Two boys and a little girl. All gone. Just like that. Then there was the conversation with Anna. The stinking possibility that Laura had been unfaithful. That he might, just might, have been wrong these last four years believing Tyron had mur­dered his family.

“Are you listening to me, Damascus? Maybe you’ll sit up and take notice over the fact that now I can’t pay you.”

“I’m listening, Jean. Did I not specifically tell you to close out that account—”

“I want him arrested.”

“No can do. The account was joint.”

“Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“It’s the law. What’s yours is his and his is yours. At least until the divorce papers have been filed. Are you going to divorce him now?”

“I’m going to kill the son of a bitch.”

“As your attorney, I wouldn’t advise that.”

May appeared at the door. “Beverly is on line two.”

“I’ll call her back,” he mouthed.

“Says it’s an emergency.”

He put Jean, still ranting, on hold. “What’s up, Bev? I’ve got a client holding.”

“Patrick has been suspended from school, that’s what’s up.”

“For what?”

“He taped a pornographic photograph to his teacher’s desk.”

“Did you call Eric?”

“He drove up to Baton Rouge this morning. He won’t be back until late this afternoon.” She took an unsteady breath. “His principal wants to see me as soon as possible. I can’t go down there and face those people alone, John.”

“You want me to go along.”

“Please.”

He glanced at the pile of case files on his desk, then up at May, whose expression reflected her annoyance.

“Right. I’ll meet you at the school in half an hour.” Hanging up the phone, he fell back in his chair, rubbed his throbbing head. “Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed.”

“Um hmm. Don’t forget you got Jean holding on one.”