French Silk(2)

Heedless of Aunt Laurel's earnest pleas, the woman pulled Claire through the screen door into the kitchen. The child looked back and saw her mother still sitting in her chair, limned in mellow sunlight. "Mama!" she cried out. "Mama, don't let them take me."

"Stop that yelling!" The woman shook Claire so hard that she accidentally bit her tongue and screamed louder, in pain.

Yanked from her stupor by her daughter's wail, Mary Catherine suddenly realized that Claire was in peril. She pushed herself up from the wrought-iron chair with such impetus that it fell over backward and cracked two of the courtyard bricks. She ran for the screen door and had almost reached it when the man clamped his hand on her shoulder.

"There's nothing you can do to stop us this time, Miss Laurent. We have the authority to remove your daughter from these premises."

"I'll kill you first." Mary Catherine grabbed the neck of a vase on the patio table and swung it toward his head.

With a sickening thunk, lead crystal connected with flesh. The blow opened up a three-inch gash on the social worker's temple. When Mary Catherine dropped the vase, it shattered on the bricks. Water drenched the front of the man's dark suit. Roses fell randomly around their feet.

He bellowed in anger and pain. "Perfectly harmless, my ass," he shouted into Aunt Laurel's face. She had rushed forward to restrain Mary Catherine.

While her mouth filled with blood from the cut on her tongue, Claire continued to fight the woman as she dragged her through the house. The man lumbered behind them, stanching the flow of blood from his temple with a handkerchief. He was cursing liberally.

Claire kept her eyes on her mother as long as she could. Mary Catherine's face was distorted by torment as she strained against Aunt Laurel's clutches. Her arms were extended beseechingly toward her daughter.

"Claire. Claire. My baby girl."

"Mama! Mama! Mama…!"

* * *

Claire sat up suddenly in her wide bed. Her chest was heaving and she couldn't catch her breath. Her mouth was arid, her throat raw from having silently screamed in her sleep. Her nightgown was stuck to her damp skin.

She threw off the covers, drew her knees up to her chest, and rested her forehead on them. She didn't raise her head until all vestiges of the nightmare had vanished and the demons of memory had slunk back into their lairs in her subconscious.

She left her bed and walked down the hall to her mother's room. Mary Catherine was sleeping peacefully. Relieved, Claire got a drink of water from the bathroom sink and then returned to her bedroom. She changed into a fresh nightgown and straightened the covers before getting into bed again. It would be a while, she knew, before she went back to sleep.

Recently she'd been plagued by recurring bad dreams that forced her to relive the worst moments of her troubled childhood. The origin of the dreams was no mystery. She knew their source. It was the same evil presence that was currently endangering the peace and security she had worked so diligently to maintain.

She had thought these past heartaches had been buried so deep that they would never be unearthed. But they were being resurrected by a malevolent intruder. He was a threat to those she loved. He was wreaking havoc on her life.

Unless she took drastic measures to change the course of events, he would ruin the future she had planned.





* * *



Chapter 1

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The Reverend Jackson Wilde had been shot in the head, the heart, and the testicles. Right off Cassidy figured that was a significant clue.

"Hell of a mess."

The medical examiner's remark was an understatement, Cassidy thought. He guessed the murder weapon was a .38 snub-nose revolver, fired at close range. Hollow-tip bullets. The perpetrator had definitely wanted to blow the victim away. Tissue was splattered on the headboard and sheets. The mattress was saturated with blood that pooled beneath the body, which, beyond the devastating damage from the bullets, hadn't been butchered or dismembered. Grisly as it was, Cassidy had seen much worse.

What made this murder scene particularly messy was the identity of the victim. Cassidy had heard the startling news bulletin over his car radio while fighting morning rush-hour traffic. He'd immediately executed an illegal U-turn even though he had no business rushing to the scene without authorization. The policemen who had cordoned off the Fairmont

Hotel recognized him and automatically assumed that he was officially representing the Orleans Parish District Attorney's office. None had questioned his appearance in the seventh floor San Louis suite that was crowded with investigators who were likely to destroy evidence in their eagerness to collect it.

Cassidy approached the medical examiner. "What do you think, Elvie?"

Dr. Elvira Dupuis was stout, gray-haired and butchy. Her sex life was constant grist for the gossip mills, but none of the conveyors spoke from firsthand experience. Elvie was liked by few and despised by most. No one, however, disputed her competence.

Cassidy loved having her on the stand if she was a witness for the prosecution. He could count on her answers to be forthright and unequivocal. When she took the oath on the Bible, she looked sincere. She always had a profound impact on jurors.

In response to his question, the middle-aged pathologist pushed her eyeglasses more squarely onto her square face. "My initial guess is that the head wound got him. The bullet destroyed most of his gray matter. Chest wound looks a little too far to the right to have burst the heart, although I can't rule it out as the mortal wound until I've cracked his chest. The shot to his balls probably wouldn't have killed him, not instantly anyway." She looked up at the assistant D.A. and grinned mischievously. "But it sure as hell would've thrown a wrench into his love life."