A Marked Man

Praise for the novels of Stella Cameron

“Hard-boiled and hard-core.”

—Booklist on A Grave Mistake

“Those looking for spicy…fare will enjoy a heaping helping on every page.”

—Publishers Weekly on Now You See Him

“Cameron returns to the wonderfully atmospheric Louisiana setting…for her latest sexy-gritty, compellingly readable tale.”

—Booklist on Kiss Them Goodbye

A Marked Man

Stella Cameron

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Also by New York Times bestselling author

Stella Cameron

A GRAVE MISTAKE

NOW YOU SEE HIM

A USEFUL AFFAIR

KISS THEM GOODBYE

In loving memory of a faithful friend, Spike.

1990–2006

Chapter One

T he moon was a thin white wafer with a big bite missing.

Walking silent streets at night—alone—could be a bad idea. Staying in bed, half awake, half asleep, sweat stinging your eyes, sticking hair to your face, while the monster panic ate you up could be a whole lot worse idea. Nothing bad ever happened around here anyway.

Annie Duhon moved quietly through the town square in Toussaint, Louisiana. That violated moon, coy behind riffles of soft gray cloud, pointed a pale finger at the wide road lined with sycamores, stroked a shine on the windows of businesses and homes on either side.

A warm breeze felt friendly. Yesterday there had been a sidewalk sale and food fair. Holiday lights strung between trees on a triangle of grass in the center of the street were turned on at dusk; they were still on and bobbled, out of place for the time of year, but festive and comforting…briefly.

She ought to know better than be lulled by a few strands of quivering colored lights. She ought to turn back and lock herself inside her apartment over Hungry Eyes, the book shop and café run by the Gables, Toussaint’s only lawyer and his wife. They lived next door and she had an open invitation, almost an order to go to them at any time if she needed help.

Help, I had another bad dream. They’ve been happening for more than a couple of weeks and they get worse all the time. Someone dies but I don’t know who. It’s a woman. Could be me.

Sure she would tell them that, and what could they do about it?

A battered pickup clanked by and made a left turn at the next corner. When Annie reached the spot and looked for the vehicle, she saw it pull into the forecourt of Murphy’s Bar where a neon sign blinked on and off behind a grimy window. The small hours of the morning and some folks were still looking for company.

Annie kept walking. She had been here for seven months and felt happier than she had in years, until the nights came when she could not shut out terrible visions of death.

Ten minutes got her to St. Cécil’s church, glowing white in the darkness, Bayou Teche a faintly polished presence behind the church and the rectory on the other side of Bonanza Alley.

The bayou drew her, always had. She slipped past the church, reached the towpath and stood awhile, her thin cotton skirt caught to her thighs by warm currents of air.

A slap and suck sound, subtle, inexorable, reminded her how the bayou water kissed its banks on a night like this. Something swam, plopped, beat up a spray. A bass, maybe, or an alligator, or even a big rat. Rats reminded Annie of things she wanted to forget. She walked a few more steps and stopped. Noises swelled, pushed at her. Frogs grumbling, little critters skittering through the underbrush, a buzz in her ears, growing louder.

Annie turned around abruptly and retraced her steps. The breeze became a sudden wind, whipping leaves against her bare legs. A bird cried and she jumped, walked faster.

On Bonanza Alley again, she looked at the rectory. A subdued light shone in the big kitchen at the back but she knew Father Cyrus Payne always kept a light on in case a stranger happened by and needed a little welcome. That good man would be sleeping now.

There were not many good men like him.

Heat rose in her face and her cheeks throbbed. Speeding her pace only made the noises around her head louder. Low lights gleamed steadily behind the stained glass windows of the church. Annie stood still again and willed her heart to be quiet.

Slowly, she pushed open a gate in the white fence surrounding the churchyard. She stepped inside and walked along a path between tombs to a side door into St Cécil’s. Annie wasn’t a churchgoer, hadn’t been since she was a teenager. She gritted her teeth, climbed the steps into a small vestibule and turned the door handle, never expecting it to open. It did and she went inside. Church used to be real important to her, until she offended and the holy congregation suggested she shouldn’t be there.

Her mama had suffered even more than she had over that.

A wrought iron gate closed off a side chapel. Annie threaded her fingers through the scrollwork and peered into the candlelit cell beyond. Those candle flames glittered on gold thread in an embroidered hanging behind the little altar. She smelled incense, and old roses, their bruised heads hanging from frail, bent necks around the rim of a glass vase.

The roses reminded her of funeral flowers kept too long because when they were thrown out, the loss would feel more final. Death was final but while the tributes remained, before the false cheer of a life’s “celebration” died away and the sympathizers stopped coming around anymore, well then, the grieving ones could try to keep truth at bay.

Nights when she gave up on sleep brought images so clear they seemed real. She didn’t want them, or the thoughts that came with them.

Inside the chapel with the gates closed behind her, Annie sat on the cushioned seat of a bench, its high back carved into a frieze of wild animals and birds. She put her head in her hands. What would she do, what could she do? Push on, exhausted by frequent nights filled with ghastly images followed by occasional recurring flashes of the same sick dramas when she was awake? Yes, she guessed that was what she would do, and she would pray for the burden to be taken away.

She did not want to go home until morning. St. Cécil’s felt safer. Evil knew better than to enter God’s house.

Minutes passed and her head felt heavy. If she went to the rectory, Father Cyrus would take her in, she knew he would. He’d make her stay and want to listen to what troubled her.

Talking about her imagination wasn’t worth taking sleep from a busy man at this hour. And talking about the reality that haunted her from other times and places was out of the question—with Father Cyrus or anyone else.

Annie had come to Toussaint to take over a new position as general manager at Pappy’s Dance Hall and Eats just north of town. Since she’d first visited the place while she was back in school and planning a fresh direction for her life, Annie dreamed of owning something like Pappy’s one day. She’d never expected the dream to come true and working there felt unreal and wonderful.

Another unexpected surprise had been meeting Dr. Max Savage and falling into an unlikely friendship with him. He often stopped by Pappy’s after the lunch rush. Sitting with him while he ate had become a habit. His idea, not hers, but she probably looked forward to seeing him more than she ought to.

Max and his brothers, Roche and Kelly, planned to open a clinic in the area. Roche was also a doctor, and Kelly took care of business matters. There would be more doctors on the staff by the time they opened. Max persuaded her to go out a couple of times and said he wanted her to consider him a friend. She wanted to, but the last time she accepted an offer like his…well, the outcome hadn’t been good. She surely didn’t want Max to find out about either her past or her present troubles.

She and Max couldn’t be more different, he a highly regarded facial reconstructive plastic surgeon while Annie came from poor beginnings and had clawed for each handhold on the way to a modest, mostly trade education. Not that she wasn’t proud of what she had accomplished.

Truth was, she intended to remain in Toussaint and make already successful Pappy’s into a destination people came from all over to visit. She would get accustomed to being alone and whatever happened, she wouldn’t be falling back on her family in Pointe Judah, not so far from Toussaint. She loved them but didn’t need them, or anyone, to survive anymore.

She yawned and before her staring eyes, the candle flames blurred. Still watching the light, Annie lay on her side on top of the cushioned seat and pulled up her legs. There was no reason not to stay, just until it started to get light.

He trained the flashlight ahead and she couldn’t see his face behind the yellow-white beam. The beam bounced and jerked. She heard the sound of something dragging over leaves and sticks, rocks and sharp, scaly pinecones. Another noise, a clank-clank of metal on the stones was there just as it had been each time the man had come.

She heard him breathing, short, harsh breaths. But she also heard the sounds she made herself, a high little wheeze because she was so scared, her throat wouldn’t work properly.

What if he heard her?

She knew what he dragged behind him.

Her eyes burned. They burned every time. Too many times.

He dropped his burden and walked forward, his flashlight trained on a thick carpet of leaves.

Rain began to fall. It splattered the leaves on the ground, turned them shiny so she saw them clearly, distinct one from another.

Overhead, branches rattled together and wind whined.

If he looked up he’d see her. She was right there.

A scent swept at her nostrils. Coppery, like blood. And burned hair: there was no mistaking that, not when you’d smelled it so close before.

The man said, “Here we go,” as if he was with his children and he’d just found the ice-cream shop they’d all been looking for. More clattering and he poked through the leaves and mulch with the shining point of a brand-new shovel.

A woman’s body lay on the ground beside him, her eyelids burned off, and empty dark holes where her eyes had been. Her hair, nothing but a thin matted spongelike layer, shed filaments in the wind.

“Here we go,” the man said again. He didn’t start digging a hole but cleared debris from an area no more than two feet across. Poking and scraping quickly brought his satisfied sigh and he lifted the woman as if she weighed nothing. Rags of blackened clothing stuck to her rigid body.

“There we go,” the man said and dropped the corpse, headfirst into a hole that swallowed her.

Annie, her hands outstretched before her, ran at the man. “Bring her back. Give her back,” she cried. But when she reached for him he turned into fire, and she cried out in pain.

Her forehead struck the side of the altar. She fell to her knees, her arms upraised, and felt her left hand scorch. At the same moment she heard the sound of flame shooting along filaments.

She opened heavy eyes and saw a movement. On the far aisle of the church, she thought. A hooded figure. “No,” she murmured. There was no one there.

Then she was wide-awake, pulling herself to her feet, righting the candle she’d knocked over and using one end of a linen runner with silk fringes to beat sizzling threads cold. Immediately she ran to the sacristy and poured water over her hands and into the sink there. She held them under the cold water and realized she had been lucky to sustain little injury. No one need find out what had happened.

The pain ebbed. She found a first-aid kit and wound a bandage around her left hand to keep the air from hurting the wound. Returning to the chapel, she took the runner from the top of the altar and used it to clean black residue from the marble.

She would pay for another runner to be made.

“Don’t jump,” a man said behind her.

Annie screamed. She screamed and shook her head, and staggered backward against him. Sweat stuck her clothes to her body. That woman she had seen in the nightmares was her, Annie. Premonitions, not nightmares. They were coming true. The gagging sounds she heard were her own.

“Annie, it’s me, Father Cyrus. People are lookin’ for you.”

Chapter Two

Hi, Max,

It’s been a long time. Forgive me for not writing sooner.

Have you picked your next victim yet?

How was London? Clever of you to go there. Far enough away for you to get lost in another closed-ranks medical fraternity, but not so far you couldn’t keep an eye on things here. I expect you were surprised how quickly the media in the States forgot about you and your nasty little habit. I wasn’t surprised.

The media is fickle, with short attention spans, but that means they’re always on the hunt for the next story, or the next installment of an old, sick story like yours.

Did you lose a close friend in London? You know the kind of friend I mean. A woman. If you did, you hid the evidence well. We didn’t hear a thing about it.

There are a few questions I want you to think about and maybe you’ll tell me the answers one day. Do you disfigure them so badly because you enjoy knowing that you are one of the few who could put some of their bones and flesh back together again, if you wanted to? Does the thought turn you on?

Do you tell them what they’ll look like afterwards and remind them that you know how to mend wounds like that—then laugh when you say you don’t heal dead women?

You’re back. That’s too bad, but we’ll make the best of it. You’ve chosen a quaint place to hide—conveniently out of touch, too, but that doesn’t mean a few words here and there won’t have the whole town watching you. If you stray, even sleepy Toussaint will notice the attention you get.

Be very, very careful who you associate with, Doctor. Stay away from whores. You know how quickly your history can jump into the public eye from every media outlet across the country—the way it did before. They loved crucifying you then and they’ll love it even more the next time—if there is a next time. But that’s up to you. Try to control yourself, and keep your nose clean.

Remember how charges in the first death, poor Isabel’s, were dismissed for lack of evidence? And the second one went the same way? Carol was so sexy.

How did you wait all those years before you killed the second time? Or did you wait? Did other women die in between without any connection being made to you?

The third time (that they find out about) won’t be a charm for you.

I don’t know why I waste my time trying to help you. Once a killer, always a killer. You’ll do it again and probably soon—unless I find a way to stop you.

Why not show my letter to someone who can help you? Not your brother, Roche. It might seem convenient to use a shrink in the family but he would only say whatever you wanted to hear. Kelly would worry about himself first, then panic. He would sacrifice you to save his own skin. Best keep this away from him, too.

Go to the law. Tell the truth and show them this. Say it’s a letter from the best friend you ever had, the only honest friend you ever had, and ask them to lock you away before you do something unspeakable again.

God help you, and them.

I don’t sign my letters to him. Why should I? He’d know I was only trying to be clever.

By now he’ll feel safe, as if he’s finally outrun me and his past, but he never will.

Chapter Three

“The reconstruction should have been finished months ago,” Kelly Savage said. “Before we had to worry about the weather.” He gestured to the restaurant windows with his sandwich.

A gray-green sky rested on treetops outside Pappy’s Dance Hall and Eats where Kelly had insisted he and his brothers meet for lunch. Max had known better than to raise curiosity by suggesting they go somewhere else, even if he did have good reasons to keep the place to himself.

Max saw his twin, Roche, skirting a giant, blue-varnished alligator inside the front doors and raised a hand. A jukebox interested Roche more than his brothers did. He leaned on the neon-flashing machine and fished in his pocket for coins.

Kelly craned around to see and shook his head. “I don’t know where that boy came from but it surely wasn’t the same set of eggs as you and me.”

“Speak for yourself,” Max said and laughed. Kelly was their half brother, their father’s son by a short first marriage, but most of the time they all forgot that.

Max had called ahead to warn Annie Duhon he’d be arriving with an entourage—they had both decided they wanted to keep their friendship fairly private, at least for now—but Annie hadn’t been in when he’d called and she still hadn’t shown up. He wished he had the right to find out why because during the past seven months he had never visited Pappy’s without finding Annie there.

He knew why he preferred not to advertise their connection. What was her reason? She’d never said, but neither had he.

Kelly clapped his hands over his ears and he was not the only one who did. “Jailhouse Rock,” as only Elvis could sing it, blared through the speakers from the jukebox, cutting off Jellyroll Morton on the sound system.

Max smiled at his diminishing pile of softshell crabs. Folks called Roche “oblivious” and Max guessed they were right, but he liked him the way he was.

“Dammit, he can make me mad,” Kelly said. “Listen to that racket. Who’s the Elvis look-alike over there?” He shifted to see better. “Black wig and a white suit. And damn me if he isn’t wearing blue suede shoes. This place got stuck in a decade I don’t remember. Kitschy doesn’t come close.”

“Loosen up,” Max said, losing patience. “I was told about him. Name’s Carmen. Apparently he’s worked here for years and he’s part of the atmosphere, I guess. He’s around in case someone forgets their manners. When Roche gets over here we’ll listen to whatever’s on your mind and get out. We could have talked at the clinic anyway.” He glanced toward Annie’s office again. The door was still closed. She loved this place and treated it with the kind of care she’d use if it belonged to her. He had seen her yesterday. If she intended to be out today she would have said so.

“The clinic ought to be finished,” Kelly said. “Aren’t you worried about your arteries with all the fried food?” He eyed Max’s crabs and took another bite out of his own toasted cheese sandwich. His basic tastes in food hadn’t progressed much since grade school.

“Sure I’m worried. Don’t you think that lump of yellow goop you’re eating could be a problem, too?”

Max was used to watching his own double walk around. Finally heading in their direction, Roche loped, tall, looselimbed and relaxed, his short black hair mussed. Crossing the dance floor in the middle of the low-lying building, he returned nods from folks he knew only by sight. He rarely smiled because it slipped his memory, but people felt drawn to him anyway.

He sat beside Kelly, opposite Max. “Did you take a look at that jukebox. Wurlitzer ‘1015.’ How do they keep the thing running?”

“Probably a new knockoff,” Kelly said.

Roche swivelled and hooked a thumb in the direction of the machine. “Uh-uh. Take a closer look. They first made those in the forties. There’s nothing new in this place. Anyway, sorry I’m late,” he finished absently.

“You were late before you got here,” Kelly said in a monotone. Max didn’t like the way Kelly looked. It wasn’t like him to be pale under his tan or to have dark marks under his usually clear, hazel eyes.

“I stopped in at Rosebank for the mail,” Roche said. “Nothing but bills.”

All three of them had small apartments at Rosebank, a resort that belonged to Spike Devol, the local sheriff, his wife Vivian and her mother, Charlotte. Green Veil, an antebellum house next door to the resort was the site of the new clinic. Already converted into a plastic surgery clinic a few years earlier, Max had decided that, with work, the place was exactly what he wanted. The work had turned out to be a lot more extensive than he had figured, but despite Kelly’s panicking, Max expected the place to open within months. It had to. Already there were doctors with different plastic specialties from Max’s who had committed to coming on board at Green Veil.

Roche looked around for a waitress. “I ran into Father Cyrus at Rosebank. He and Vivian closeted themselves away and didn’t look so happy.”

“Wonder what that was about?” Kelly said. “Those two don’t go in for closed-door meetings, do they?”

Roche shrugged and asked a waitress in squeaky-bottomed shoes for the same thing Max had ordered. “This is a great place,” he said, hanging his head back to look at a thick layer of mostly yellowing business cards tacked to the ceiling. “It’s got character, atmosphere. I’d like to come when the band plays. Did you see the size of the gator out front? Blue.” The restaurant surrounded a dance hall and the section where the Savages sat was built off one side of the building.

“Blue what?” Kelly said, after considering. “The shoes? Yeah, fucking idiot Elvis impersonator. Jeez.”

“He was talking about the alligator,” Max said. “It’s called Blue. I told you that when we got here.”

“Yeah,” Roche said to Kelly, his tone light and even. “And I’m humoring you, friend. Otherwise I’d tell you to go to hell and take your third-degree with you.”

Time to change the subject. “Wasn’t it great to see Michele Riley yesterday? I knew she’d come for an interview just to be polite, but I wasn’t sure she’d accept the job.”

Roche said, “I was,” and looked too pleased.

“Because she can’t resist your charms?” Max asked. “I don’t think you had much to do with it. She likes the idea of having her own physical therapy department even if it will be small. And she’s damned good, so all the luck is on our side. I’m relieved she wants to come here—there’s nothing much she doesn’t know about me.”

“Oh, yeah?” Roche crossed his arms.

“You know what I mean.”

Roche looked into the distance. “It’s a good sign she’s so positive. She’ll bring others with her—including the fiancé she ought to dump in favor of me. She seems to really like it here.” He and Max had known Michele professionally. At their invitation she had come to Toussaint the day before, expressed delight over the clinic and agreed to coordinate the physical therapy department. Her fiancé was a nurse.

“Just remember Michele’s taken,” Max said to Roche and smiled. “It’s beginning to feel as if we should have done something like this a long time ago,” he observed. “This will be a good place for patients to recuperate.”

“Fucking weather,” Kelly muttered as if he hadn’t heard a word either Roche or Max said. He gulped beer from a sweating glass. “You know you can’t hide forever, don’t you, Max.”

“If I didn’t, I do now,” Max said. “Where did that come from?” He could always rely on their older brother to state the obvious.