"No. I just ... need to speak to him."
"You mind if I ask what about?"
"It's ... a personal matter.”
His eyes raked down the front of her, and she felt every inch of his perusal as if he'd peeled away her clothes and touched her flesh with his fingertips.
"Personal, huh?" One side of his mouth quirked, but Nat couldn't tell if it was a smile or if he had a bad taste in his mouth. "Look, chere, if Mike sent you, this probably isn't a good time."
She didn't know anyone by the name of Mike and had no idea what he was talking about. "Nobody sent me."
His eyes did another slow, dangerous sweep of her, his expression telling her his initial surprise had given way to curiosity. ''I'm Nick Bastille. What's this about?"
''I'm Nat Jennings." She stuck out her hand, hoping he didn't notice her wet palm or recognize her name.
Never taking his eyes from hers, he accepted her hand. His palm was calloused and rough. Even though his grip was gentle, she sensed the power behind it. If he'd recognized her name, he gave no indication.
He released her hand and opened the door wider. Her heart pinged hard against her ribs when he stepped onto the porch. Nat wasn't exactly short at five feet five inches, but Nick Bastille towered over her, and she amended her initial estimation of his height. The man was at least six four.
“The house is hot as an oven," he said in a slow Cajun drawl. "Air conditioner's on the fritz. More comfortable out here on the porch." He strode to one of two columns, looked out over the barren field for a moment, then turned to face her. "I've got to leave for work in a few minutes, so you might want to tell me what brought you all the way out here when I can see this is the last place you want to be.”
At some point her heart had begun to pound. All of her carefully rehearsed lines left her mind the instant his eyes met hers. Within their depths she saw the glint of amusement, but it was hard and unpleasant now and played on her nerves like the hot strike of a match on gunpowder.
"I want to talk to you about your son," she blurted.
His eyes went cold and brittle, like liquid steel plunged into ice water. "I don't have a son."
"I'm talking about Brandon."
"My boy died two years ago."
"I know." She tried to swallow, but her mouth had gone talc dry. "I'm sorry. I know how difficult it is to lose a child.”
"Do you?"
She met his gaze in kind, angered even though she knew he probably didn't know what she'd gone through in the last three years. "Yes."
He didn't ask her to elaborate, didn't even look interested. He simply gazed at her with an expression that was so cold it brought gooseflesh to her arms.
"My son died, too," she said. "Three years ago. He was . . . murdered. In our home. My husband, Ward Ratcliffe, was killed, too."
"What does that have to do with me?"
Nat crossed to him on shaking legs, close enough for her to see the questions in his eyes, the hostility burning just beneath the surface, the underlying traces of pain a parent never recovered from. "I don't know how to tell you this, so I'm just going to say it. Brandon's death was not an accident, Mr. Bastille."
Shock registered in his eyes, and then his mouth pulled back into what she could only describe as a snarl. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"He didn't drown in that pond alone."
He came off the column like a puppet jerked to attention by an overzealous puppeteer. "What is this? Some kind of sick fucking joke?"
"N-no."
His lips peeled back to reveal straight white teeth that were clenched in fury. "What are you saying?"
Nat took a quick step back. "I'm sorry I have to tell you this, but your son was murdered."
"Murdered?" His laugh was a terrible sound, but the look in his eyes was worse. "Where do you get off telling me something like that?"
"I know this is difficult to hear—"
"Difficult is not the right word, you crazy bitch. Who the hell are you?"
"I don't blame you for being angry a-and confused. If you'll just let me ex—"
"Lady I'm a hell of a lot more than angry and confused. I'm fucking furious and an inch away from showing you exactly what a furious man can do. If you had a brain inside that pretty head of yours, you'd get in your car and get the hell out of my sight before I do something we're both going to regret."
The temptation to run was strong, but Nat resisted. She was shaking, but in a quiet place deep inside she knew there was nothing this man could do to her that could be any worse than what she had already endured. It was a twisted way to bolster her courage she knew, but it worked.
"At least hear me out,” she said. "Please. It's important."
He stared at her as if he wanted to kill her. Nat could see his jaws bunching as he ground his teeth. His hands clenching at his sides. Lips peeling back as if he were a fanged creature about to take a chunk out of her. Black temper burning in his eyes.
"Who the hell do you think you are, coming here and telling me some bullshit story about my son being murdered?" he ground out.
"I'm the woman who can help you find the bastard who did it."
# # #
It took several seconds for her words to penetrate the black cloak of fury. Nick had never been a violent man; he'd never touched a woman in any way she didn't want to be touched. But for an interminable moment, he feared he might cross a line and do something he would be sorry for later.
The death of his son was an open wound on his heart. An agonizing wound that had festered and bled every second of every day he'd been locked away. To have that wound prodded so thoughtlessly enraged him.
He stared down at her, shocked that the lovely creature looking up at him could say something so utterly brutal and still have such a pretty face. He searched her eyes for the lie he didn't understand, but her expression was as guileless as a child's.
"Look, Mr. Bastille, I know you don't want to hear this," she said. "I know it's ugly and painful and difficult to understand, but you have to listen to me."
He was upon her before he could stop himself. His hands on her shoulders, fingers digging into soft flesh. She tried to twist away, but he tightened his grip and muscled her backward.
“I don't know what kind of twisted game you're playing, lady, but you just fucked with the wrong guy."
She made a sound when her back hit the wall. "You're hurting me,” she gasped.
He saw fear in her eyes. He wanted to believe that was satisfying because there was a small, mean part of him that wanted to hurt her. But there was nothing satisfying in the way her face went pale or in the way she winced when he squeezed her shoulders.
Shamed that he'd touched her in anger, he loosened his grip and gave himself a hard mental shake. "Where the hell do you get off telling me something like that about my son?"
"I know this is a shock. Just ... listen to me. I have information."
"You have two seconds to state your case."
"The man who murdered my son is the same monster who murdered yours."
"My son's death was an accident."
"I'm sorry, but it wasn't."
"My son drowned!"
"He may have drowned, but it wasn't an accident."
Furious that she would say something so heinous, he slapped his palms against the siding just a few inches from her face hard enough to make her jolt. "The police investigated," he snarled. "The parish coroner—" His voice broke at the memory. "There was an autopsy, for God's sake."
"The coroner was wrong."
Nick ground his teeth. Having lost Brandon in a cruel accident was bad enough. But to have this woman present him with the possibility that his son had spent his last minutes knowing evil existed was simply too much to bear.
Afraid he was about to snap, he shoved away from her. He could feel his heart raging beneath his ribs, his breaths tearing raggedly from his lungs. pain slicing like a knife. When he raised his hand and shoved his finger in he
r face, he was surprised to see it shaking. "Get the hell out of here."
Watching him with dark, frightened eyes, she pushed away from the wall and backed toward the porch steps. "I'm not wrong about this."
A strand of hair had fallen into her face. When she lifted her hand to tuck it behind her ear, he spotted the scars on the underside of her wrists. Another emotion that was part anger, part disgust coursed through him. Before even realizing he was going to move, he snagged her wrists, yanked her toward him, then turned both hands wrist side up so that the bright pink scars were visible to both of them.
His gaze drilled into hers. "You think these scars give you some kind of license to hurt people, or are you just fucking nuts?"
"It's not my intent to hurt you."
She tried to tug her wrists from his grasp, but he didn't let her. He didn't give a damn if she was ashamed of the scars.
"Yeah, and I think you need to get back on whatever medication you're taking."
He looked down at her wrists with a sneer. The scars were ugly, even though the wounds had long since healed. He could see stitch marks where some emergency room doctor had closed what must have been hideous wounds. He could only assume they were self-inflicted. One thing he knew for certain was that she hadn't hesitated. These wounds hadn't been a cry for help. She'd been totally focused on finding the most expeditious way to the radial artery and severe bloodletting. Jesus Christ.
"Let go of me," she said.
He looked away from the scars and met her gaze. Her eyes were the color of Arizona turquoise. large and fragile and fringed with sooty lashes. They were the kind of eyes a man could get lost in if he looked too long. He wondered what could have been terrible enough to make this pretty young woman think that death was a better alternative than life.
He released her with a tad too much force, sending her stumbling back. "If you're not off this porch in the next ten seconds, I'm going to call the cops and have you arrested for trespassing."
"I'll go,” she said. "But I don't see how you can think that burying your head in the sand and letting your son's killer go free is a better alternative than the truth."
"Give me one reason why I ought to believe you."
"Because the man who took our children from us is going to kill again if someone doesn't stop him."
Nick stared at her, incredulous and shocked speechless. "How do you know that?"
"I know. And I know we don't have much time to stop him."
"Does this nameless, faceless monster have a name?" he asked. "An address? Hell, maybe you've got his home phone number?"
"I don't have a name!'
"That's convenient as hell." Sighing tiredly, he scrubbed his hand over his jaw, realized she'd given him a headache. "Go tell the police what you know and leave me the hell out of it."
"The police won't believe me."
"You think maybe that might be because your theory is total bullshit?"
She looked fierce standing there on his porch with her eyes flashing and her chin jutting defiantly. But he could see clearly that she wasn't nearly as impervious as she wanted him to believe. Her entire body was shaking, from her hands and shoulders all the way down to her knees. He told himself that didn't bother him. But Nick had always had a weakness for vulnerable, troubled women, and this one fit the mold to a T.
''Three years ago my son was murdered," she said in a shaking voice. 'The murderer was never apprehended. Your son drowned under suspicious circumstances a year later."
"The only suspicious circumstance related to my son's death was that my ex-wife was passed out in the house." Even after all this time, the thought twisted him into knots.
"I have nothing to gain by lying to you," she said.
"Yeah, maybe you're having some kind of psychotic episode." Nick wasn't sure why he was still listening to her. The last thing he needed was some woman making wild claims about an incident that had come within an inch of destroying him.
"Do you have any evidence to support anything you've said?" he asked. .
"I have—” She bit off the words abruptly and flushed.
Something niggled at the back of his neck. "You have what?"
When she didn't say anything, he crossed lo her, took her arm, and muscled her down the steps. "You've had your say, chere. Now I want you off my property."
"Mr. Bastille ... "
"For the life of me I can't figure why you'd make up a wild story like this and drive all the way out here."
''The only thing I have to gain is justice for my son."
He could feel her shaking within his grasp, but-he didn't let go. Not for the first time it entered his mind that she was emotionally unstable and in need of some kind of psychiatric care. But Nick didn't care. He'd long since considered himself a compassionate human being.
She put up a fight as he forced her through the high grass, but she was small and he handled her with ease. When they reached the driveway, he released her and shoved her toward her car. "Get in the goddamn car."
"Mr. Bastille ... "
When she made no move to obey, he opened the door. "Get in or I swear to Christ I'll throw you in."
She slid behind the wheel. "What's it going to take to convince you?"
Nick thought about it for a moment. "An eyewitness," he said and slammed the door.
Chapter 4
Nat was still trembling when she parked the Mustang outside the Bellerose Police Department and shut down the engine. For a full minute she sat behind the wheel and tried to convince herself her encounter with Nick Bastille hadn't shaken her badly.
But the ex-con with the dark eyes and snarling mouth bad shaken her up plenty. Nat had expected anger and disbelief from him; she'd been prepared. What she hadn't anticipated was the threat of violence. She'd been looking directly into his eyes when she'd told him about his son. She'd never seen a man look so dangerous and so utterly broken at the same time.
Nick Bastille may not realize it, hut he was still grieving for the loss of his boy, and that grief was as dark and bottomless as the soul of the man who'd killed him.
Shoving thoughts of Nick Bastille aside, she looked through the windshield and studied the red brick facade, telling herself she wasn't terrified of walking inside. Nat hadn't set foot inside the Bellerose Police Department since that terrible night three years ago. She knew there were a host of unpleasant memories waiting for her. Memories made exponentially worse by a hostile police force that believed she'd gotten away with murder.
Her heart knocked hard against her ribs as she got out of the car and started toward the entrance. Shoving open one of the double glass doors, she strode purposefully into the building. The public utilities department where people could walk in and pay their water bill was to the left. Nat took a right and crossed to the reception desk, where a bored-looking strawberry blonde was flipping through a glossy magazine.
"I'd like to see Chief Martin," Nat said.
The strawberry blonde glanced at her over the tops of her bifocals, sizing her up. Recognition kicked in and the woman's mascara-ringed eyes widened to the size of silver dollars. "Oh, you're ... uh, Nat Jennings?"
Nat nodded, mentally noting that the woman's expression was more curious than hostile. "I just need a few minutes of his time."
The woman closed the magazine and sat up straighter. “Do you have an appointment?" She fumbled with an appointment book that, Nat noticed, was mostly blank.
"No." She'd known that if she'd called ahead, the chief would have found an excuse not to see her. Better to catch him off guard.
"I'll let him know you're here." She punched numbers on the switchboard with a long, red fingernail. "Chief Martin? Nat Jennings is here to see you."
The chief's office was down the hall, close enough for Nat to hear his exclamation of "What?"
The woman tapped her pencil against the magazine for a moment, then hung up the phone and pursed her lips. "I'm sorry, Ms. Jennings, but the chief is tied up this afternoon. Tow
n council stuff. If you’ll leave a number, he'll call you as soon as he's free."
Nat had known before walking in thatAIcee Martin wasn't going to be happy to see her. Hell, if she were in his shoes, she wouldn't be happy to see her. But she'd been hoping he would at least give her the respect of going through the motions. That he wouldn't even give her that made her realize she wasn't going to be able to do this the nice way.
The receptionist was peering at her curiously over the tops of her bifocals, the way a kid might after prodding a nasty-looking bug. Nat had pegged the woman as a gossipmonger and found herself wondering how fast she could dial with those long nails. It wouldn't take much to get the tongues wagging in this town once the word was out that Nat Jennings was back and sniffing around the police department.
“Thanks for your help," she said and started for the chief's office.
"Ms. Jennings ... you can't go back there."
Nat heard the woman's chair scrape against the tile floor, but she didn't stop. She might have found the whole thing amusing if there wasn't so much riding on this initial meeting.
She stopped outside the door labeled Alcee Martin, Chief of Police. She heard the receptionist's swift steps behind her and, taking a deep breath, shoved open the door.
Alcee Martin was a tall, lanky man with intelligent brown eyes and skin the color of dark roast coffee. He had the dubious honor of being Bellerose's first African American police officer, and he had a chip on his shoulder the size of Lake Pontchartrain to prove it. He was standing with his back to the door, looking out the window through the miniblinds at the parking lot beyond. His shirt was crisp and white as snow. His navy slacks were snug with a precision crease down the front. He was as neat as a man could be without looking like a mannequin.
"She gone?" he asked upon hearing the door open.
"No," Nat said.
He turned slowly. His eyes went flat when they landed on Nat.
"I'm sorry, Chief," the receptionist's voice sounded from behind her. "I tried to stop her."
"It's all right, Charlene," Shaking his head, he sighed tiredly. "Just close the door behind you."