Full Exposure

So who would she run to, he wondered. She didn’t have any friends really—except him. He’d seen to that. A few comments here, a car accident there, and Serena was his. All his.

As it was meant to be.

So where was she? The condo was dark, a surefire way to tell that she wasn’t at home. The two lights she kept burning all the time—the one in the family room and the one in her bedroom—had been extinguished. He’d already gone around the back to check.

An ugly suspicion darkened his mind—had she gone to him? To that bayou rat with his long hair and power tools? Or was she with the agent? He’d seen how the man had touched her, watched the care and concern he poured into her. Maybe she had gone to him—it made more sense then the manual laborer, after all.

But still, the indignation was almost more than he could bear. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She didn’t dare turn to another man. Not after everything he’d gone through to ensure that she’d turn to him. Not after the long, long years he’d waited so that they could be together.

The prison. The loneliness. The headaches.

One was coming now. He could feel the prickling behind his eyes, the tension seeping slowly into his scalp. He had to get home before it got too bad. But he couldn’t leave here yet, not without being sure. Maybe the tension had been too much and she’d simply fallen asleep.

Or maybe she really was playing the role of whore, like her sister had before her.

Reaching a casual hand into his pocket, he pulled out a lock-picking set from his younger, wilder days. He was inside in under a minute and turned to deactivate the alarm. But the green light blinked harmlessly, another surefire sign that Serena wasn’t home. She’d never leave her alarm system off if she was inside. Not after Sandra.

Fury lived inside of him, grew with each breath he took. He wanted—needed—to throw something else. To smash everything in the house into irreparable pieces. He reached for the lamp on the entryway table. It was strong and sturdy and beautiful like Serena herself. He longed to destroy it—punishment for her duplicity. For the error in her ways.

But he’d already lost control once tonight—he couldn’t afford to do it again. Besides, it wasn’t time for that yet. Serena might still be able to be redeemed.

He set the lamp down with a clatter and wandered from room to room. He avoided her bedroom and the clichéd search though the underwear drawer that came with it, though a part of him longed to touch something so intimately connected to her.

Because he wanted it so badly his hands shook, he deliberately turned away. A loss of control—now—was totally unacceptable. It wouldn’t get the job done. He walked, deliberately, into her darkroom and an almost orgasmic pleasure overwhelmed him.

This is where she spent her time. This is where her most intimate connections existed. He caressed a bottle of developing fluid, ran a hand over one of the trays she used to develop. The thrill was almost sexual. Like being inside of her and he felt himself harden in response.

He took a deep breath and smiled. He could still smell her in here—the lingering sent of jasmine touched him with every breath he took. It calmed him, relaxed him, reminded him of the connection they would always share.

Another breath told him she’d been in here today—the jasmine lingered despite the harsh smell of the chemicals. But no pictures hung drying, none stood developing—which was an oddity for her. He’d been in here enough to know.

She must have been too upset to work. Too upset to think. And who could blame her, really? It had been a truly terrible day for her.

The realization calmed him as nothing else could have. Serena was too upset to know what she was doing. That’s why she hadn’t waited for him. That’s why she’d torn out of here without bothering to set the alarm. She couldn’t stand the silence.

He could understand that. Respect that, at least for now. So often he had the same problem.

Flipping off the red light, he closed the darkroom door and headed back toward the entryway. He could afford to be patient for a little while longer.

A very little while.

* * *

Kevin’s eyes flew to Serena’s, horror rocketing through him. As he’d sat here listening to her weep, he’d struggled to find an answer for her behavior. But even in his worst imaginings, he’d never pictured this. He searched for something to say, anything, but there was no soothing platitude for the occasion. Or if there was, he’d certainly never heard it.

Finally, he settled for truth. “He got off.”

Her eyes, a deep melted chocolate, caught his and held. “Obviously. Five years before his pathetic excuse for a sentence was up.”

“What happened?”

Her mouth trembled. They both knew he was asking about more than the parole hearing. But when she spoke her voice was rock-steady, as if she were reciting a story she’d told many times. “When we were sixteen, Sandra—my sister—fell in love for the first time. He was rich, good-looking. Everyone thought he walked on water.”

He was watching her closely, saw the grimace she couldn’t hide. “But not you.”

“No, not me. There was always something that seemed just a little bit off about him, you know? Even though he did and said all the right things. Sometimes, he’d get this look in his eyes—like he owned the whole world and dared someone to try to take it away.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he did own almost everything—after Sandra’s death it sure felt that way. Either way, I didn’t like him. I tried to, especially since Sandra was so crazy about him. But Damien and I rubbed each other the wrong way from the first day she introduced us.”

Her voice broke and he nodded encouragingly, needing to know the whole ugly story but wanting her to get it out at one time so she wouldn’t have to revisit it again.

Serena seemed to understand, because after a minute she continued. “Anyway, I tried telling Sandra how I felt, but she didn’t want to hear it. She loved him, more, I think, than she loved me. At least at the beginning.

“So I backed off.” She shook her head and tears welled in her eyes. “Even though I knew something wasn’t right with him, even though I didn’t trust him, I backed off. My distrust was driving a wedge between us and I couldn’t stand it. She was my twin, my best friend. I couldn’t let a guy come between us. So I shut up, went on double dates with them, tried to ignore the fact that my skin crawled whenever he looked at me.”

He stroked her hair back from her face. “You’re not actually blaming yourself for trying to hold on to your relationship with your sister, are you?”

She laughed, a bitter sound that hurt his ears. “Hell, yes, I blame myself. That night, when he came over, I knew—I knew that he was up to something. But I let him in, let him get near her. If I had slammed the door in his face like I’d wanted to, Sandra would still be alive.”

“No, she wouldn’t.” He tilted her chin up until he could look straight into her eyes. “If it hadn’t been that night it would have been the next. You know it, Serena. Much as you’d like it to be otherwise, you know it.”

She looked away, shrugged her shoulders, absently rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “When they first started going out, she was so happy. She laughed all the time, zoomed from school to the library, from his house to home and back again. She’d never been one to sit still—she was always the outgoing one, but when she was with him her energy was supersonic. She practically glowed.

“But things started getting ugly after about six months.” She bit her lip, jiggled her legs up and down as she searched for words that had suddenly abandoned her.

“He started getting jealous, really jealous. Didn’t want her hanging around with anyone but him, wanted to know where she was at all times.” Her laugh was sad. “The same old warning signals, same old story. I recognized them, tried to tell her once, but she was too far gone to listen.

“We had a huge fight and she didn’t talk to me for days. It felt like my heart had been ripped out. So I shut up, kept out of his way. I tried to tell Mom and my stepdad, but they were blinded by his pedigree.” This time the laugh was bitter. “Even after he’d killed her, after he’d raped and mutilated her, all Mom could say was that there must be some mistake. He was a LaFleur.”

“Jonathon LaFleur?” Shock slammed through him and he couldn’t stop himself from butting in. He’d designed a sculpture for the LaFleur building in downtown New Orleans years ago, had spent quite a bit of time with Jonathon and his wife. He’d liked them and their youngest son, Michael, as well.

She snorted, nodded. “Jonathon is Damien’s father. He’s at least as charming, and as amoral, as his son. He’s the one who bought off the police and got them to destroy evidence. He also put pressure on the D.A., got Damien an incredible plea bargain that never should have been offered.”

“Are you sure?” He could have bit his tongue the second the question slipped out, but the story she told was so at odds to the man he knew.

“Of course I’m sure!” She looked at him scathingly, pushed herself off his lap before he could stop her. “Damien LaFleur murdered my sister in cold blood. When he was arrested he was charged with first-degree murder, felony rape, and first-degree attempted murder. They had him dead to rights—a witness, the fingerprints at the scene and on the murder weapon—a weapon he’d brought with him to the house. They even had her blood on his shoes. And then suddenly the knife is gone, his shoes are lost and he’s being offered a manslaughter plea. You think it was out of the goodness of the DA’s heart?”

Kevin shook his head, stared at her. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be.”

He couldn’t stand the way she was looking at him, as if he was a bug deserving to be squashed. But, he admitted bitterly as he replayed their conversation in his head, he deserved it. Wasn’t he the one always talking about how appearances could be deceiving? Wasn’t he the one who rarely trusted people? As he cursed himself, his mind seized on something that she’d said. “Attempted murder? There was someone else involved?”

Her gaze slid away from his and she shrugged her shoulders, obviously uncomfortable. “Yeah.”

A sick feeling started in the pit of his stomach. An image of the scar on her arm flashed into his head. “What happened, Serena?”

“He killed my sister.”

“I know that. But you said you opened the door, let him in. What happened?” he demanded, grasping her arms in his, looking her straight in the eye so there could be no evasions, no half-truths.

She tried to turn her head, tried to lie. But something in his eyes stopped her. She shrugged, cleared her throat. “I let him in, called for Sandra. Then I turned to close the door and he stabbed me—in the back. I started to scream, to warn her before she came downstairs, but he punched me, hard. I don’t remember what happened next, but I came to in the coat closet. He’d locked me in, shoved something up against the door so I couldn’t get out. It was dark, pitch-black. I couldn’t see anything, but I could smell the blood underneath me, around me. I could feel the cold slowly seeping through me.

“And I could hear. I could hear everything he said, everything he did to Sandra. I heard her scream as he raped her, heard him curse as she kicked and scratched. I even heard the knife go in again and again.” He wiped away the tears slowly slipping down her cheeks, but she was too caught up in the past to notice.

“Everyone thinks that guns are the noisy way to kill, that if you stab someone it’s silent. It’s not—at least it wasn’t with Sandra. It makes noise, a lot of noise, when something cuts through flesh to the organs beneath. When the knife hits bone and is deflected. When the person being stabbed screams her killer’s name, begging him to stop.”