The preacher closed his eyes and shook his head as if he were in deep emotional pain. "Laurel," he murmured, privately cursing her to hell and gone. "She came to me with the same story. Apparently the workings of Savannah's sadly twisted mind. Heaven only knows where she might have come up with such tales of depravity. I fear she walked a dark path," he said with a dramatic sigh.

Kenner sniffed in derision and cleared his throat noisily. "I don't give a rat's ass what path she walked. Why would she have it in for you?"

Jimmy Lee cut the theatrics in half. The sheriff was not a patient man. "She was a regular at Frenchie's Landing. I would see that den of iniquity shut down."

"You ever tie a woman up to have sex with her?" Kenner asked bluntly.

"Sheriff! I am a man of God!"

"Plenty of shit gets done in the name of God. Did you ever?"

Jimmy Lee looked him square in the eye, as innocent as an altar boy. "I wouldn't dream of it."

But he was dreaming of it when he left the sheriff's office five minutes later. And the face of the woman bound beneath him was Laurel Chandler's.

Kenner stubbed his cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray and swung his chair around to face Danjermond, privately wondering how the district attorney could manage to stay looking like some cover boy from GQ while he looked and felt and smelled like a survivor of a jungle campaign. They had all been putting in hellish hours since the discovery of Annie Gerrard's body. The stress, the fatigue rolled off Danjermond like oil off Teflon.

"What do you think, Steve?" Kenner asked. "Is the preacher a pervert, or is Jack Boudreaux our man?"

Danjermond tightened his jaw at the nickname, but made no comment. Twisting his signet ring on his finger, he wandered to the window, noticing with irritation that the blind had been hung crooked. "I can't think that Annie Gerrard would have had anything to do with Baldwin, considering he was trying to shut down her parents' bar. He denies involvement with Savannah Chandler. No one has actually seen them together. As to Savannah's accusations-well, we know she was a woman who might say or do anything. She may well have had a grudge against him. We'll never know."

"And Boudreaux?"

"Certainly has the kind of imagination it would take. If his books are anything to go by, he has a taste for violence. He knew both women. He has a reputation as a ladies' man."

"But no stories floating around about him tying them up or getting rough."

Danjermond turned from the window, pinning the sheriff with a penetrating stare. "He may have killed his wife back in Houston, Sheriff Kenner," he said darkly. "Is that rough enough for you?"

Frowning hard in thought, Kenner reached for the pack of Camels on his desk, shook out the last one, and dangled it from his lip. "Maybe we'd better have us a little chat with Mr. Jack Boudreaux."

It was late afternoon by the time Laurel made it to Prejean's Funeral Home. Aunt Caroline had tried to talk her out of it. Hadn't the day been terrible enough? Wouldn't it be better to wait until after the autopsy and after Mr. Prejean had done his part? Wouldn't she rather remember her sister as something other than the victim of a brutal crime?

Yes, but she was the victim of a brutal crime, a crime she had suffered through alone. Laurel couldn't bear the thought of it. They had always had each other. Even when Ross was making his secret visits to Savannah's room, they had still shared the pain afterward. The idea that her sister had faced her killer all alone, in the swamp, where there was no one to hear her cries for help, where there was no such thing as forgiveness, no mercy…

Blinking back the tears, she pulled open the front door and stepped into the hall, then gagged at the heavy perfume of carnations and Lemon Pledge. A vacuum cleaner was droning in the Serenity room. Mantovani seeped out of the speaker system-syrupy violins and twittering flutes.

Lawrence Prejean stepped out of his office and walked right to her, as if he had sensed her presence. He was a small man, not much taller than Laurel, spare and wiry with an elegance that had long made her think of him as a Cajun Fred Astaire. He had a thin layer of neatly combed dark hair and big, liquid brown eyes that were perpetually sympathetic.

"Chérie, I'm so sorry for your loss," he said softly, sliding an arm around her shoulders.

Laurel wondered dimly how, after so many losses, so many tragedies, he could still dispense such genuine feeling to the bereaved.

"Your Tante Caroline called to tell me you were coming down," he said, taking her by the hand. "Are you sure you want to do this, chère?"

"Yes."

"You know we are transporting her to Lafayette tonight?"

"Yes, I know. I just want to sit with her for a while. I need to see her."

She almost choked on the words, and shook her head, annoyed with herself. She had gone back to Belle Rivière from Beauvoir, taken a long shower, followed the dictates of Mama Pearl and lay down for a time, thinking all the while that she was composing herself, that she would be able to do this without breaking down. "Comport yourself as a lady, Laurel. You're a Chandler; it's expected."

Prejean paused at the door to the embalming room and patted her hand consolingly, his big dark eyes as warm and deep as an ancient soul's. "She was your sister," he murmured. "Of course you need to see her. Of course you will cry. You need to grieve. Grieve deeply, chérie. There is no shame in that you loved your sister."

Her eyes glossed over, and she dug a hand into the pocketbook she'd borrowed from Caroline to pull out a crumpled pink tissue.

He ushered her into the room with a gentle hand on her shoulder. The aromas of flowers and dust spray were replaced by medicinal and strongly antiseptic scents, reminiscent of a high school biology lab. And beneath the overpowering smell of formaldehyde and ammonia, the fetid stench of death lingered. The room was as neat as any operating room, as cold and sterile. The linoleum shone under the glare of fluorescent lights. In the center of the floor stood the table.

Laurel stood beside the draped figure, still managing to find some fragment of hope that it wouldn't be her sister. Prejean pulled a chrome-and-plastic chair over and situated it in a way that suggested he thought she might pass out.

"You're ready, chère?" he whispered. After all his years in this business, he seldom tried to contradict the wishes of those who were left behind. Death stirred up many needs, both bright and dark. Only the one experiencing the loss could know what those needs were and how they had to be met.

At Laurel's nod he slowly folded down the drape, uncovering only the dead woman's face and carefully arranging the sheet so that it covered the horrible discoloration on her throat.

Laurel took one long, painful look at her sister's face, swollen and distorted, and that small, irrational part of her mind tried to tell her that her most desperate hope was a reality. This wasn't Savannah. It couldn't be. Savannah was beautiful. Savannah had always been the pretty one, and she had always been the little mouse. This couldn't be Savannah's wild, silken mane, this dull, matted tangle of hair. This couldn't be Savannah's elegant, patrician face, this flat-featured, gray mask.

But another part of her brain, the logical, practical part, overruled with a harsh voice. That's your sister. Your sister is dead. Dead. Dead. Dead… Her gaze seemed to zoom in on the grotesquely distorted features, on the single gold earring still pinned to the right ear-a loop of brightly polished, hammered gold that hung from a smaller loop of braided gold wire. Savannah had had a pair made in New Orleans. A present to herself for her last birthday. This is your sister, this ugly corpse. She's dead. The truth filled her mind, the putrid smell of it filled her nostrils and throat.

With a weak, piteous sound mewing in her throat, she sank down into the plastic chair and bent over her knees, torn between the need to cry and the need to vomit. Prejean had anticipated the possibility and sat a stainless steel bucket beside the chair. He squatted down beside her and brushed cool, soft fingers against her cheek.

"Are you all right, chérie? Should I call someone to take you home?"

"No," she whispered, swallowing hard and willing her stomach to settle. "No, I just want to sit here for a while, if that's all right."

He patted the hand that gripped the arm of the chair. She was a brave little thing. "Stay as long as you need, petite. The sheriff will be coming later. If you need anything, there's a buzzer near the door."

Laurel nodded, knowing the procedure. She had always stood on the other side of it, where it looked logical and necessary. From where she sat now, her perceptions distorted by emotion, it seemed unbelievably cruel. Her sister had been taken from her, killed, and now the authorities would put her through the indignity of dissecting her body. The ME might find some crucial evidence that could solve the case and condemn the killer, she knew. But in that moment when grief threatened to swamp all else, she had a hard time accepting.

Questions from childhood drifted up through the layers of memory. Questions she had asked Savannah about death. "Where did Daddy go, Sister? Do you think he's with the angels?" They had been raised to believe in heaven and hell. But doubts had edged in on those beliefs from time to time, as they did for every child, for everyone. What if it wasn't true? What if life was all we had? Where would Savannah go? Savannah, so lost, so tormented. Oh, please, God, let her find peace.

Time slipped away as she sat there wondering, remembering, hurting, grieving. She let go of all the tears she had tried to hold on to, of all the pain she had been so afraid to feel. It all came pouring out in a torrent, in a storm that shook her and drained her. She knew Prejean checked on her once, but he left her alone, wise enough to realize she had to weather the onslaught of her grief alone. Alone, the way her sister had died.

She thought of that when the tears had all been cried. The way Savannah had died, the way Annie had died, the way their killer had chosen her to play games with.

"Does he want you to catch him, Laurel? Or does he want to show you he can't be caught?"

"I'll catch you, you bastard," she whispered, staring hard at the shrouded body on the table. "I'll catch you before you can put anyone else through this hell."