Kill himself. The idea had crossed his mind more than once. But he dismissed it. He didn't deserve the freedom death would offer. It was his punishment to live, knowing he was worthless, knowing he had killed the one person who had seen good in him.

Evie. Her face floated before his mind's eye, soft, pretty, her dark eyes wide and trusting. Trust-that cut at him like a razor. She had trusted him. She was as fragile as fine blown glass, and she had trusted him not to break her. In the end he had destroyed her, shattered her. Killed her.

A wild, indistinguishable cry tore up from the depths of him, and he turned and slammed his fist against the wall, the sounds of agony and impact echoing through the empty house. Empty, like his heart, like his soul, like the bottle of Wild Turkey dangling from the fingers of his left hand. The beast lunged at its barriers, and he whirled and flung the bottle and listened to it smash against a door down the hall.

"Worthless, useless, rotten…"

The image of Blackie Boudreaux rose up from one of the dark corners of his mind to taunt, and he stumbled from the hall, through a dark room, and out onto the upper gallery to escape it.

"Bon à rien, tu, bon à rien…"

The memory came after him like a demon, painfully sharp and so bright, he squeezed his eyes closed against it. He pressed his back against the brick wall, braced himself, held himself rigid until every muscle quivered with the effort, but nothing stopped the memory from coming.

His mother stood doubled over by the kitchen sink, blood running from her nose and lip. Tears swam in her eyes and streamed down her cheeks, but she didn't cry aloud. She knew better. Blackie didn't want to hear caterwauling; it made him meaner. Le bon Dieu knew he was mean enough in the best of times.

Jack clutched at her skirt, frightened, angry, ten years old. Too small to do anything. Worthless, useless, good for nothing. Good for hating. He figured he was an expert at that. He hated his father with every cell of his body, and that hate launched him away from his mother's trembling legs and into Blackie's path as he advanced, arm drawn back for another blow.

A high-pitched scream pierced the air as Marie came running in. Jack didn't glance at his little sister, but yelled for her to get out as he flung himself at their father. He wished he were bigger, stronger, big enough to hit Blackie as hard as Blackie hit Maman, but he wasn't. He was just a puny runt kid, just like Papa always told him.

That didn't mean he wouldn't try.

He balled his fists, meaning to pound his old man as best he could, but Blackie had other ideas. He swung the arm he had pulled back to strike his wife with, instead backhanding Jack across the face, knocking him aside like a doll.

Jack hit the floor, his head spinning and throbbing, tears clouding his vision, hate burning through him like acid.

Then suddenly he wasn't ten anymore. He was a teenager, and he got to his feet and grabbed the iron skillet off the stove and swung it with both hands as hard as he could…

He jerked as his mind slammed the door on the memory.

"The only place I kill people is on paper, sugar…"

From where he stood in the deep shadows of the gallery he could see Belle Rivière. He could see across the darkened courtyard to the back door, where the outside light was still burning. All the windows were dark. Sane people were in bed at this hour. Laurel was in bed.

"And I sit in the still of the night and howl at the moon," he mumbled, sliding down to sit on the weathered floor of the gallery. Huey materialized from the shadows and sat down beside him, a grave look on his face, pendulous lips hanging down.

"You don' know enough to stay away from the like of me, do you, stupid hound?"

Laurel knew enough. She was wary of him.

"And well you should be, mon ange," he murmured, staring across at the black windows of Belle Rivière.

She had let him kiss her, had let him get close, but in the end she had shied away. Just as well for her sake. He was a user and a cad. Lady-killer… killer.

The word simmered in his brain as he pushed himself to his feet and went inside to work.