The Butcher and the Wren(20)

“What are you looking at?” Will swivels himself around and cranes his neck.

Leroux walks straight through groups of people, slamming into someone’s drink as he passes.

“Hey, asshole!” the stranger calls after him, raising his hands in frustration and wiping his button-down shirt.

Leroux ignores him and doesn’t stop until he stands in front of the wall just to the right of the entrance. Wren squints, watching both ends of the bar. She can make out the stark white flyer thumbtacked on the dark brown wood paneling that has caught Leroux’s attention. It’s an advertisement for an upcoming jazz festival on Bourbon Street—a prelude to Mardi Gras season and a considerable crowd draw. She watches as Leroux reaches out and touches it, feeling the embossed fleur-de-lis border. It has a sheen to it, iridescent.

Exactly like the scrap paper left with the last body.





CHAPTER 13





JEREMY WATCHES EMILY WAKE THROUGH the monitor screen, her head no doubt pounding as she flutters her eyes open. She tries desperately to blink out the haze that comes from the chloroform-and-ketamine cocktail, quickly realizing that she is surrounded by pitch blackness and sitting in something moist and spongy.

She’s probably wondering why she is outside. But before she can contemplate her situation too deeply, the sharp sound of audio feedback echoes high in the darkness, jolting her to her feet. She scrambles to gain her balance and blinks to find the source but is startled again when Jeremy’s voice begins to speak.

“Good evening, guests. I would love it if you all could give me your attention for a moment.”

Does she recognize my voice yet?

“Somewhere near each of you, there should be a flashlight. Use it. I don’t need anyone accidentally drowning in a swamp out here.”

Emily scans the ground around her, moving her face close to the moss and roots that creep under her feet. It’s almost funny to watch from Jeremy’s vantage point. His night-vision camera bathes everything in a green light, making Emily look like an alien creature shoving her face into the ground. In reality, she can’t even see her own nose in front of her. She blindly feels the surface beneath her, finding only swampy earth before her foot hits something foreign and solid. It’s the flashlight.

“You have been dropped in random locations on my property. There is a fence around the perimeter, and speakers have been mounted in various places within it.”

She must know by now.

Her face changes. It’s complete recognition. It is the voice of her lab partner broadcasting through the speakers. It is the voice of the last person she remembers seeing before she opened her eyes out here.

With a satisfied smile, he continues into the speaker, “Look, this game is simple. Your only job is to do your best to evade me as I make my way through the course. It’s that easy. The name of the game is to survive, my friends. Try to escape, if you can. The only thing between you and your freedom is a few acres of bayou … and me.”

She clicks on her flashlight. The beam of light casts forward to reveal that a blanket of moss surrounds her. The low-hanging branches of what looks like a thousand bald cypress trees reach around her like hungry predators. She is so alone, but he has made sure she feels suffocated. Her chest heaves, and she lets out a childlike sob.

“Don’t worry, I’m a fair guy. I gave you a generous head start. And don’t forget to take it all in. This may well be your last few hours as a sentient bag of flesh.”

Emily lurches forward as a paralyzing fear visibly ignites her nervous system. For a second, Jeremy thinks she may just break. Instead, she takes a deep breath in and closes her eyes. Her face turns almost calm. Using her newfound flashlight, she starts taking inventory of her own skin.

She’s looking for marks. Smart girl.

She spots something—the small bruise that is almost certainly tender on her arm. He can tell she knows she has been drugged. When she looks down at her feet, at her beat-up moccasins, a snake large enough for Jeremy to see on camera slithers past her foot, and she cries out in frustration. The canopy of trees blocks out any light from the moon, and the interminable sound of cicadas keep her senses on edge. Sound can manipulate emotions better than almost anything else. Somewhere an owl calls out, and she jumps slightly. He brings the microphone back to his lips.

“Let’s get started. My advice? Run.”

He hesitates for a second, but she doesn’t. She runs. Tripping over uneven terrain and twisted cypress roots, she frantically searches for safety. And suddenly another sound cuts through the darkness, making her cover her ears.

Music. He starts to play music.





CHAPTER 14





WREN ENTERS THE CRIME LABORATORY through the staff entrance. She walks down the hallway quickly, her heels clicking on the newly renovated floor, and makes her way toward the office where Leroux told her to meet him.

As she rounds the corner, she sees Leroux inside on the phone. By the smile on his face, she can tell it’s a personal call with Andrew.

“I really am sorry about the cream. I know you hate it when I leave the empty container in the fridge like an asshole,” Leroux sheepishly admits.

Andrew’s loud voice carries through the phone enough for Wren to make out almost everything he is saying.

“John, it’s fine. I know this case has you strung out lately.”