Charisse ducked her head again, looking ashamed. "I'm sorry, Saria, I really am. It's my fault. I talked him into it."
There was a long silence. Drake didn't realize for a moment that he had snarled, the menacing sound filling the room and freezing all the occupants. When he looked down, he could see that Remy had thrown out a restraining hand, but had been prudent enough not to touch him.
Charisse trembled, drawing back as far from Drake as possible.
"It's all right, Charisse," Saria soothed. "That's just Drake's leopard gettin' a little upset, no big deal. He knows I'm marryin' him soon."
Remy's eyebrow shot up. "You are?"
"Yes she is," Drake said. "But I'm interested in Charisse's explanation. Why would you encourage your brother to attack Saria?"
"Not attack her. You don't understand. Our mother wanted Armande to marry Saria because it was obvious Saria had a leopard. He told her that he didn't love Saria and Saria didn't love him, that they were just good friends. Our mother wouldn't listen. She told him it was his duty. You don't know my mother. She can be quite vicious when she wants something, especially with Armande. She cries and tells him he doesn't love her. She won't talk for days on end. She punishes us for any little indiscretion. She claims we're not loyal and it goes on and on until every moment is pure, intolerable hell."
She glanced at Drake and then looked away. "You have no idea what it was like growin' up with her. Armande was desperate to appease her, so I came up with a plan. I told him if he used the product--we call it IDNS--basically for identification of nonscent--which wouldn't allow even her leopard to scent him, most likely her leopard wouldn't react or accept him, but he could tell mama he'd marked her."
"Show her the scars on your back," Drake snapped.
Saria glared at him. "I don't think that's necessary."
"The point is, he hurt her," Drake said.
"I know," Charisse admitted in a low tone. "He told me. He cried. He said he could barely control his leopard--that his leopard went crazy on him the moment he was close to Saria. He couldn't stop his cat from reacting to her. I hadn't considered that and neither did he. Her leopard didn't rise because she couldn't scent his, and that made his leopard crazy. I should have known, but all I was thinkin' about was getting' Mama off his back." She looked at Saria steadily. "I'm sorry. Armande was sorry too."
"If your brother was so fucking sorry," Remy snarled, "why did he go after my sister with a gun?"
Drake was very glad he wasn't the one asking, but he would have if Saria's brother hadn't.
Charisse moistened her lips. "His leopard has been goin' crazy lately and Robert's too. It has to be the flowers, they must have been drinkin' together somewhere in the swamp near the flowers. That's the only explanation I can come up with. When I asked him, he shook his head and said he felt crazy inside."
"Where's Armande now?" Remy demanded.
"I don't know," Charisse said. "He went to bed around midnight, but I heard him leave again about five-thirty this morning. I was in my bedroom cryin' and I heard him talkin' on his cell phone and then he walked down the hall and paused by my door like he might come in and talk to me, but he didn't. He went outside and I heard the car start up. I got up, went to Saria's house lookin' for her and then came here."
"Was he acting abnormal last night?"
Charisse shrugged. "There was an upset last night. Mama was really ugly. She was so angry with me for being upset over breakin' up with Mahieu. She broke all the dishes in the kitchen and tore up a sweater he bought for me when it turned cold on a date we went on. She tore it into strips and threw it in my face. She kept slappin' me until Armande dragged her away. Then she began weeping and told him I was embarrassin' her on purpose and ruining the Lafont name. He lost his temper and told her to shut up. Mama went very quiet and wouldn't accept his apology. She just went away. When she's like that you never know what she's goin' to do. He went to his room and I went to mine."
The niggling suspicion in the back of Drake's mind blossomed into a full-blown certainty. She tore it into strips. A woman's rage. A female leopard's rage. Saria's clothes had been torn into strips. His clothes had been torn into strips. He'd believed the men coming to the inn to drive him from the lair had done it, but ripping up clothes wasn't a man's temper tantrum--it was a woman's.
Not Armande. Iris. Iris Lafont-Mercier. She had taken care to keep the inn from burning down even while she tried to murder them all. She had access to the coffee to put the drug in it. She knew the security code. She worked at the post office where she could hear all gossip, keep an eye on everyone and intercept Saria's letter. She was a jealous, perverted woman, fit for being the mate of a man like Buford Tregre. The man had spurned her because she couldn't shift. He'd taken another woman as a mate and taunted Iris with his vicious depravity. She'd married the man whose property neighbored his and taunted him right back with her own brand of depravity.
Iris had despised her daughter and worshipped her son. She'd seduced and killed Charisse's boyfriends and slaughtered Armande's girlfriends. She'd even corrupted the family business in the hopes of ruining her daughter by framing her for the opium placed inside the perfumed soaps. Drake had to be certain, but Iris had to have her own secret workplace, close to home, probably close to Charisse's laboratory so suspicion would remain on Charisse.
Iris had given Leopard's Lover to her sister, one of her only real mistakes. She'd been the one to spread the seeds through Fenton's Marsh when she killed Charisse's boyfriends and along the strip between Mercier and Tregre land when she went to meet Buford, which, if he was right and they were mates, would have been often.
Saria made a small sound in the back of her throat. Her face was so white it was nearly gray. That was his woman. Smart. Quick on the uptake. She'd come to the same conclusion as he had.
"Mahieu," she whispered.
Remy shook his head. "Don't worry about him, cher, he's leopard. None of these people ever saw it comin' and had no chance."
"We need to go the Mercier house so we can be certain," Drake cautioned. "The team's at the Marsh, baby. If there her ow sign of someone murdered, they would have found it by now. And Mahieu would never meet her alone in the marsh. You know he's smarter than that."
"Charisse, we need your permission to search your house and the grounds," Remy said.
Charisse looked up with tear-drenched eyes, glanced at Saria and then nodded.
20
BEHIND the magnificent mansion that had been built as an obvious showpiece, the
crumbling remains of a longforgotten plantation home lay partially buried by the creeping vines and heavy brush of the swamp. Charisse's laboratory had been constructed in part of the foundation of the original plantation house. Most of the earlier structure was crumbling and eaten away by worms or rotted by the dirt and vines of the swamp as it reclaimed its land.
Charisse used sections of the older house to connect between the greenhouse and her laboratory. Their contractor had preserved one long room to serve as a hall between the two new buildings. Not only did the long room keep the rain off, but it gave Charisse a large storage area for the equipment both for her laboratory and greenhouse.
Drake led the way through the laboratory to the storage room, heading toward the greenhouse. Obviously the killer had spent time in the greenhouse and it was possible they could find something to lead them to wherever the opium was being placed in the soaps that had been manufactured in town.
"Wait," Charisse whispered as they moved through the darkened storage room. The early morning light couldn't penetrate the layers of dirt and grime on the windows. She stepped out of the line and placed her hand on the wall. "Can you smell that? Blood. I can smell blood. It's faint but it's this way."
"That's a wall, Charisse," Remy felt compelled to point out.
She shook her head. "I used to play in there when I was a child. It's a hidden passage that was for the servants long ago when this area was a plantation. There'
s a narrow hallway that leads downstairs to a rambling, condemned series of rooms that had been used at one time to house slaves. I haven't been down there for years, but I can smell the blood. I'm certain, Drake."
A chill went down Drake's spine. His leopard was close to the surface, yet he hadn't scented the blood. There was no doubt in his mind that if Charisse said she smelled it--that she did--unless . . . He didn't want to think he was wrong about her and she was leading them all into a trap. He glanced back at Remy and nodded with his head, silently telling the man to bring up the rear--to keep his eye on Charisse.
"You do know Iris Lafont-Mercier can't possibly be the killer, right?" Remy whispered as they waited for Charisse to locate the hidden door in the wall. He drew his gun. "She can't shift. The killer is a shifter. You just pointed the finger at Mama to get Charisse to allow us to search her property right?"
Drake glanced at him over his shoulder. "I'm leader of the lair, not the police, Remy. I don't require or want permission to search anywhere in the lair. I'd just do it."
There was a bite to his voice he couldn't help. Remy should have taken at him ovadership of the lair, but instead, Drake was stuck with it and Drake didn't shirk his duty. He'd taken on the responsibility and that meant cleaning it up. He had no doubt he was after a very clever killer and right now, his radar was shrieking at him that he was leading Saria right into a trap. Iris didn't need to shift all the way to be the killer. A partial shifting was unusual but certainly happened when bloodlines weakened.
Charisse found the mechanism for opening the door. Drake waved her back and stepped into the darkened, dirty hallway. The scent of blood was stronger here, wafting up from below. He could smell a mixture of fragrances and an elusive scent his leopard cringed away from.
Saria stepped into the space behind him and inhaled sharply. "I smell Mahieu--and Armande. They've both been inside this passageway recently."
"Baby, maybe you should . . ."
"Don't say it, Drake. Don't."
No. She wouldn't stay behind no matter how bad it got. Saria had too much backbone for that. He could hear her heart thundering in her chest, her ragged breathing. The smell of fear coming off of her was strong. She was terrified for her brother, but she wasn't going to hide upstairs while he checked to make certain Mahieu was alive. Drake stopped abruptly at the top of another narrow staircase.
"Those stairs are in disrepair," Charisse said. "No one ever comes here."
There was an absence of spiderwebs and the steps had been repaired in places. Still, it looked as if a few of them might crack under a man's weight. Drake tested each step cautiously. There were seven and they wound around a pillar down into another room and with each stair, the scent of blood grew stronger. Vines from outside had reclaimed the structure and pushed through the slats so that the swamp grew inside, snaking up the walls to the ceiling and down along the floor.
Long tables spanned the room. Small, fancy boxes and colored tissue paper were crammed in the garbage cans. Remnants of perfumed soaps and stems of withered plants were strewn around the floor as if they'd fallen and no one had bothered sweeping up.
"Here's where they packed the opium into the soap," Remy whispered.
Charisse made a small sound and leaned down to examine a crack in the table. When she would have touched a small, hardened bead caught in the crack, Remy stopped her, touching her hand and shaking his head.
Drake halted just past the second table. Fresh blood smeared the edge of the table, a bloody handprint where someone had grabbed the table to steady themselves. His heart plunged and he couldn't help the small glance he spared for Saria. Her gaze was fixed there. She couldn't fail to scent her own brother's blood. The scent of Armande Mercier was strong in the room. There was no doubt he had been in the stuffy room quite recently.
An open door on the far side of the room led to another hallway. Wood rot and vines crept through the cracked siding. As with most dwellings in the area, the house had been built a good seven feet above ground, allowing for the water that poured into the area each season, flooding the land continually. The hall led down to the space below.
As he approached the room, Drake scented a leopard's lair. This one was damp, dark and smelled overwhelmingly of depravity. Every leopard could smell corruption to some degree. This lair stank of it, of an evil, immoral degenerate. This lair had been used in more than one life cycle, home to a cruel, cunning monster or monsters.
As he took another step, Drake caught the coppery scent of blood, a man's cologne and fear. He moved in silence, his leopard lending him stealth as he rounded the corner and caught sight of Armande crouched over Mahieu. One bloody hand ground into the wound in Mahieu's belly, while another gripped his throat. Across from the two men, Iris Lafont-Mercier stood with a tear-streaked face, one hand extended pleadingly toward her son.
Remy shoved passed Drake, gun in his hand and leapt toward Armande. Charisse screamed and leapt after him. Although her leopard hadn't emerged, there was no doubt that she had one rising close to the surface. She covered the distance in a single leap, trying to shove Remy away from her brother. Simultaneously, Iris was on her daughter, jerking her backward, dragging Charisse with her, a razor-sharp knife against her throat.
"Mama, no!" Armande begged, trying to roll out from under Remy.
"Don't you dare!" Drake roared. His weapon was absolutely steady.
Charisse squeezed her eyes closed tight, not daring to breathe. Hatred filled the small room. Remy and Armande remained crouched beside Mahieu, working furiously to stem the flow of blood.
Saria moved out from behind Drake, into the center of the room. Iris's green-yellow eyes tracked her, filled with loathing. She snarled, exposing long canines. Her gaze followed Saria's every movement, focused with a predator's stare. Saria took another step to her right, forcing Iris to turn slightly to keep facing her.
Drake's mouth went dry. He had no doubt that Iris was an expert with a knife. Saria was deliberately putting herself in harm's way. One toss of the knife and Saria was dead. Iris would still have weapons. The others thought she had no leopard, but it was evident to him from the scents in the lair that her leopard was strong. She might not be able to fully shift, but some with weakened bloodlines could partially change and her leopard was filled with hatred, giving her the strength for a partial shift.
"Did you think you could hide from Drake, Iris?" Saria asked, her voice low. "You looked to that old man Buford for strength. He was an old fat slug, takin' advantage of any woman he thought was weak. You loved a coward. You admired a man who raped and beat women and you thought that was strength." She poured disgust into her voice, not just disgust, but amusement, as if she was secretly laughing at Iris.
Drake knew what Saria was doing--goading Iris into staying completely focused on her. She knew Iris, they lived in a small area, and were in each other's lives. She knew her vanities, the things that would make her lose her ability to think beyond what Saria taunted her with. She had accessed the situation the same way he had. Mahieu needed immediate medical attention, and Charisse was going to die if they didn't kill Iris first.
"You hated your daughter because she was everythin' you aren't. She's beautiful and intelligent. She's worth millions of dollars and she brought fame to a name you despise. You hated your husband because you couldn't hold him," Saria continued. "Everyone knew it. I heard whispers when I was a child. He wasn't faithful to you, was he? You couldn't hold a man like that. You couldn't hold either of them, could you? Buford or Bartheleme."
Drake waited for the perfect shot. Another inch, baby. I need her to turn another inch just to be certain. He could make the shot if there was no other choice, but she still might be able to slice through Charisse's throat and she was vicious enough to take her daughter with her just for spite.
Iris bared her teeth and a slow hiss emerged. "I was the one who had affairs, not that idiot of a husband. He didn't think I was clever. Only Charisse. Always his precious Chariss
e. If Charisse is so beautiful and intelligent, how come every one of her boyfriends slept with me? How come they all did anything I asked of them? Charisse is so damned stupid she didn't even know what was happenin' under her nose."
"The opium? You and Buford cooked that up between you."
Drake was so proud of Saria's steady voice. She spoke as if she'd known the truth for years, as if she wasn't guessing at all. She took another step toward the right and her hand slid down to the knife at her belt.
His heart jumped, but he didn't move. Didn't blink. Just waited for that one moment that was certain to come. Not too close, he silently advised, wishing he could leap in front of Saria, but he had to trust her--trust her leopard to protect her. Iris was insane and her leopard was just as mad. There was no telling what she would do now that she was cornered.
"Stupid girl. Buford and I made so much money right under her uptight goody-goody nose." Iris's gaze shifted just for a moment to the moldy chests stacked to the back of the room. Vines climbed around them, but each one had a brand new lock. Her treasures. "We fucked in Bartheleme's bed all the time and even in her bed. She never knew, not even with her precious nose--the nose her father wanted to insure." There was such a mixture of loathing and contempt in her voice, Charisse began to weep.
"Maybe you did," Saria conceded, "but you needed the nonscent Charisse developed, didn't you? Buford used you for his own gain. While he was fuckin' you, he was doin' the same to a hundred other women."
"Whores. They were whores throwin' themselves at him. I killed them and left their bodies to rot with the gators."
"Please. Please." Armande wept. "She needs help."
Drake would bet his last dollar that Buford had given Iris gifts and she kept them here, in her lair. The money from the opium was kept in the cases until she could filter it through businesses in town or more likely--to implicate Charisse--the perfume store.