The "how" of that question eluded her for the moment. She had no jurisdiction here. Kenner wouldn't let her interfere. But the "how" was unimportant just now. The vow was important. She had come home to hide from the shame and the failure of Scott County, where justice had not prevailed. She had wanted to turn away from the challenge here. She had watched Danjermond poke through the pieces of jewelry with his slim gold pen and listened to him ask her questions in his smooth, calm voice, and she had wanted nothing more than to turn and run. But she couldn't.

Justice would win this time. It had to. If there was no justice, then all the suffering was for nothing. Senseless. Meaningless. There had to be justice. Even now, even too late, she wanted justice for Savannah.

"What are you trying to atone for, Laurel?" Dr. Pritchard asked, tapping his pencil against his lips.

For my silence. For my cowardice. For the past.

Justice was the way.

She couldn't just put the past behind her. It would never be forgotten. But there could be justice, and she would do everything in her power to get it, she vowed as old fears and old guilts settled inside her and melded and solidified into a new strength. She would fight for justice, and she would win it… or die trying.

They came for the body at seven-thirty. Kenner and a deputy. They would escort the hearse to Lafayette and witness the autopsy, which would be performed by a team of pathologists. Partout Parish had neither the budget nor the need for the kind of equipment necessary for detailed forensic work. Laurel went out into the hall and stood there, not able to watch them zip her sister into a body bag. But she stayed until she heard the cars drive away and Prejean came back out of the room.

"I'll bring some clothes for her tomorrow," she said, her heart like a weight in her chest. "And there's a necklace-something our father gave her. I'll have to get it back from the sheriff. She wouldn't want to go anywhere without it."

"I understand."

But would Kenner? she wondered as she walked out into an evening that smelled of fresh-mowed grass and approaching rain. The necklace was evidence.

How had it gotten into her pocketbook? When? These were questions she had gone over with the sheriff half the morning. She turned them over and over again as she leaned on the roof of the BMW and watched the thin stream of traffic pass on Huey Long Boulevard. She either had to have been separated from the bag when it happened or had to have been in a crowd. Someone could have come into the house, into her room, but that seemed far too risky for a killer as smart as this one.

If not for the fact that she was now on her way to an appointment with a coroner, Laurel knew she once might have suspected Savannah, and the shame of that curled inside her. She hadn't wanted to think about it, but her mind had sorted all the information into logical rows and columns, and, God help her, the theory had begun to take shape. Savannah-unstable, jealous, filled with hate for the image she had of herself as a whore, a violent temper simmering just beneath the surface. Savannah-her big sister, her protector, the one person in the world she loved above all.

"I'm sorry, Sister," she whispered, squeezing her raw, burning eyes shut against a fresh wave of guilt.

Think. She had to think. Savannah was gone; it wouldn't do any good to be sorry now.

The necklace could easily have been planted while she was in a crowded room. It would have been a simple matter of stepping close, making the drop, walking away. Easier than picking a pocket.

A crowd. Annie's wake. The thought that the killer might have come to his victim's wake was almost too ghoulish to contemplate. He might have stood in that room, as a hundred people had stood in that room, witnessed the kind of pain he had caused T-Grace and Ovide and their family, and felt what? Triumph? Amusement? It turned her stomach to think of it.

Half the town had crowded into the Serenity room to pay their respects to the Delahoussayes. She had wound her way through them, taking little notice of whom she passed or brushed up against. It literally could have been anyone.

A gleaming black, late-seventies Monte Carlo wheeled into Prejean's drive and pulled in behind the BMW. The tinted window on the driver's side slid down to reveal Leonce and a red leather interior. Beausoleil was playing on the tape deck, Michael Doucet's frenzied fiddle unmistakable. Leonce turned it down to a whine, then leaned out the window.

"Hey, chère, I heard about Savannah," he said, frowning beneath the brim of his Panama hat. "I'm really sorry."

"Thank you, Leonce."

"She was kinda wild, dat one, but me, I always liked her." He shrugged. On the leather-wrapped steering wheel his fingers absently drummed time to the music. "She just liked to pass a good time."

Laurel couldn't find a suitable comment. Savannah had been far too complex to be described in one light sentence.

"Look," he said. "Why you don' come with me out to Frenchie's, chère? The bar's still closed, but there's a few of us gettin' together to talk and lift a few in Savannah's name. It might make you feel better. You can ride out with me."

She was standing beside a perfectly good car with the keys in her hand. Why would she want to ride with him?

Her mind was working like a prosecutor's. She started to chide herself for it, but stopped short. She had every reason to be cautious and suspicious. Six women were dead. A killer had singled her out. Leonce had known both Annie and Savannah…

She looked at him, at the scar that slashed across his face, at the tilt of his dark eyebrows and the neatly trimmed Vandyke, scrambling to say something before the silence became strained. "Oh, I don't think so, Leonce…"

"Come on," he cajoled, motioning her closer with a flick of his wrist. "It's good to talk through grief with friends."

"I appreciate the thought, but I'm really not up to it. It's been a very long, very trying day." That was the truth. She couldn't remember ever feeling as drained in quite the same way.

Leonce frowned and gunned the engine of the Monte Carlo. "Suit yourself."

"I should get home to Aunt Caroline. Thanks anyway."

Without another word, he pulled back into the car, buzzed the window up, and wheeled out of Prejean's circular drive. The Monte Carlo hit the street and pulled away with an impressive show of horsepower and what Laurel imagined was a small show of temper.

The wheels of her mind began to turn again. Leonce. Jack's friend. Ovide and T-Grace treated him like a son. He took care of the bar in their absence and dispensed beer, shots, taproom wisdom… and milk. He had guessed at her stomach problems and given her a glass of milk the night they found Annie. Not the attitude of a homicidal misogynist.

Yes, he had known Annie and Savannah, but did she have any reason to suspect he killed them? Or was it only his appearance that made her see him in a sinister light? The scar that cut across his face both fascinated and repulsed her, but it wasn't proof of guilt. And she knew only too well that looks could be deceiving.

She was too exhausted to think straight; her beleaguered brain kept dropping the ball. Shaking loose the key to the car's door, she blew out a breath and tried to think of only one thing instead of ten-Belle Rivière. She would be in bed within the hour. If she was very, very lucky, she wouldn't dream.