Sins of the Storm (16 page)

“T
hen don’t force mine.”

Her voice was strong and sure, with a steely resolve Jack recognized too well. “I’m not that scared little girl anymore, Marcel. I don’t bend—and I don’t break.”

Jack grabbed his Glock and car keys, made for the door. “Get D’Ambrosia,” he called to MaryAnne, then tossed the handset back to her. “Transfer it to my cell.”

By the time he made it to his car, his phone was ringing—and Gator was sliding in beside him.

“I mean it, girl,” Lambert said in that soft silky voice of his, without one trace of the Cajun accent he turned on so thick when the media hovered. “Not another step.”

“Or what? You’ll shoot?”

Dark spots clouded Jack’s vision. He gunned the engine and flicked on the siren. Seven minutes. That’s all he needed. If Camille could just keep him talking—

Camille. Christ. He’d let her walk away, had accused her of being reckless. But somehow she’d managed the 911 call.

She’d managed to call him.

“I don’t think so,” she said with not one flicker of fear in her voice. “Not this time.”

“Put it down,” Lambert instructed, and this time there was an edge to his voice. “Nice and slow.”

Nice. And. Slow.

The words gunned through Jack. He accelerated onto the main highway, toward the drawbridge. He could use the siren for a few more minutes. Then: silence.

“Now why would I do that?” Camille asked, sugar-sweet, and goddamn it, everything inside Jack tightened. Through the blur of pine and cypress he could see them, standing somewhere at Whispering Oaks, each with a gun….

“Son—” Gator started, but Jack shot him a hard look.

“You really think I’m that stupid?” Camille asked—and Jack had never wanted to kiss her more. She was doing it, exactly what he needed her to do. Stalling, dragging out every minute. “You really think I’m naive enough to think you’re going to let me walk away?”

“I did before.”

“But not this time,” Camille said. “Not now. The second I put this down, I’m a dead woman.”

Jack flicked off the siren, but the speedometer continued to push one hundred. Dark thoughts raced faster. A gun didn’t guarantee safety. Lambert could go for her thigh, her knee. One quick shot, and unless her reflexes—

“That’s not true,” Lambert said. “If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done that a long time ago. I’ve already told you. I’m just going to take you out into the woods. By the time they find you I’ll be long gone.”

Gone.

“You’ve killed before.”

“It was an accident!” The edge to Lambert’s voice finally broke. “Your sainted daddy lied to me. He told me he hadn’t found the Rapture—”

“Because he knew you!” Camille shouted as Jack jerked the squad car into the opposite lane and veered past two pickups. “He knew you were going to take it, exploit it.”

“He pulled the gun first, sweetheart.”

“To protect himself—his family.”

Jack turned hard onto the narrow dirt road to his right.

“You forget I was there,” Camille went on. “I
heard!
”

“Stop here,” Gator said, but Jack was already pulling off the road. They’d take the last half mile by foot.

“You were the one who charged him,” Camille said. “You were the one who went after him.”

Jack shoved open the door, and ran.

“You were the one who covered it up,” she went on, more quietly this time. “You were the one who threatened Gator, ran him out of town, because he was there, too.”

“Just put it down,” Lambert said, and from the other man’s voice, Jack knew he didn’t have much longer.

“Because he saw, too,” Camille said. “He knows.”

Jack tore through the Spanish moss, ignored the tightness in his thigh.

“The man’s a drunk,” Lambert snarled.

“And you’re a murderer,” Camille said, still so goddamned calm.

“Go back,” Jack called back to his father. “Wait for D’Ambrosia…don’t let him drive in.”

“So do it,” Camille went on, and then Christ God have mercy, he saw her. Saw Camille. She stood with her back to the railing of the upper balcony with her arms outstretched, and in her hand—

Jack stopped. The breath, the truth, cut through him.

Through the heavily leafed branches of the oaks, sunlight glinted off the object in Camille’s right hand.

“Shoot me,” she invited and something inside of Jack started to unravel, “because so help me God you will never get your hands on this.”

It all flashed then, and with blinding clarity Jack knew. She stood there, with her chin angled and her shoulders square, her hair whipping around her face—and the stained glass window held out like a sacrifice she was perfectly willing to make.

“Now who’s the fool?”

Camille pressed her back to the old balustrade, knew what she had to do.

“You really think I believe you’re just going to drop it?” Lambert asked, and this time the tall, once-elegant man moved. He took a step toward her. Then another. “You really expect me to believe you’re going to let go, let it fall?” Something not quite right glittered in his eyes. “Let it break?”

Bluffing, she told herself. He was bluffing. “Absolutely.”

A hard, distorted sound broke from his throat. “I don’t think so.”

The smooth edges of the glass her father had given his life to find burned against her flesh. “There’s only one way to find out,” she said. But God, her heart kicked hard. She had no way of knowing exactly how much time had passed since Lambert had tracked her onto the balcony. She’d fumbled in her purse, tried to get off the call.

But had no way of knowing if the call had gone through.

Or if MaryAnne would realize what was going on. The operator might not have heard anything, might have dismissed the call as a prank….

She couldn’t stall much longer.

Eyes flat, Lambert used his free hand to unclip the phone at his waist, then jabbed a number. “Get in position,” he instructed, then flipped the phone closed. All the while, he kept his eyes on Camille. “You’re so like him,” he snarled. “Proud to the end.”

Her smile was slow, sure, but she said nothing, just watched him take another step.

“It didn’t have to be like this,” he said, as the wind whipped at them both.

“Oh, but it did.” Too many nasty ends still dangled. Until they were tied off, she and Jack could never fully move forward. “My family,” she said. “My rules.” Slowly, she released her pinkie and middle finger, leaving the stained glass dangling between her thumb and forefinger. “And this time—”

From the room behind him, a shadow shifted…and Jack emerged.

The rush came hard and fast, but she banked it, hid it. “This time you won’t be walking away,” she promised as Jack moved toward them, slow, steady, like the soldier he’d been, the sheriff he was—the man he’d become. Shadows stole detail, but she didn’t need to see, not when she felt the quickening deep in her blood.

Lambert’s eyes narrowed. For a fleeting heartbeat he glanced beyond her, toward the ground below. Then he smiled—and without looking, Camille knew someone stood below.

Ready to catch the stained glass.

“You should have taken the out I gave you,” Lambert taunted, but Camille didn’t react, barely let herself breathe. Not when Jack stepped onto the balcony and inched toward them, slow and steady and so impossibly focused the pounding of her heart hurt. He gestured toward her, let her know he wanted her to duck.

“I don’t take outs,” she said as Jack held up three fingers. “And I don’t run.” Two fingers. “But you should have.”

He laughed—

One finger.

—and lunged.

She twisted and pulled the stained glass to her side, dropped to her knees as Jack dived for Lambert. Swinging toward her, he jerked back violently—and momentum took over. In slow horrible motion she saw Lambert stagger…saw Jack reach for him. Saw the hundred-and-fifty-year-old railing crumble.

Saw Lambert vanish over the edge.

Heard the sickening thud.

And for a frozen moment she could do nothing, just kneel there clutching the stained glass window as the warm wind lashed at her and Jack. She looked up at him, saw the dark horror in his eyes, and felt what was left of her heart shatter.

But just as quickly the moment released them and he was reaching for her, even as she was pushing to her feet.

They met somewhere in the middle and reached for each other, and this time, they held on tight.

Camille looked up from her keyboard and swiveled the big leather chair toward the large window behind the desk that dominated the Robichaud family study. The purplish hues of twilight stole detail, but not the crunch of tires against gravel.

Her heart rate quickened. Hours had passed since Saura had driven Camille to the family’s secluded estate, where she was supposed to be resting. But too much energy surged through her. She couldn’t curl up on a bed and go to sleep, not when…

Marcel Lambert was dead. After all these years, the man who’d taken her father’s life had finally met his fate. He’d died a coward’s death, breaking his neck when he went over the edge. No small irony there. She and Jack had run to the broken railing, had looked down to see Jack’s father standing a few feet from Lambert’s body…with a gun on Russ. Russ, the young deputy Jack had been grooming—Russ, the mole Lambert had planted in the sheriff’s department to keep his ears and eyes open. Russ, who’d set the fire near Jack’s grandmother’s house…Russ, who’d stolen her laptop…who’d apprised Lambert of every step she’d taken.

Russ, who’d broken into her hotel room and read her notes, who’d notified Lambert she was on her way to Whispering Oaks.

The shock of it all…she’d felt it tear through Jack, felt him go so horribly still. She’d put a hand to his back and braced herself, knew fully well that he’d pull away. That he didn’t want a hand to his back.

Instead he’d turned to her and lifted a hand to her face, slid the hair from her eyes. “It needs to end,” he’d said in that awful, quiet voice. “Here, now…it needs to end.”

And then D’Ambrosia had run onto the balcony, followed by Hank and several other deputies. And Saura. Saura had been there. She’d put her arms around Camille and held her, had never left her side, not at the plantation, not at the station, not even when Camille had given her statement. Jack—

Footsteps sounded against the marble entryway. Camille spun toward the door as it pushed open—and saw him.

Not Jack, but her heart sang anyway. And his name came on a quiet sob. “Gabriel.”

Her brother strode toward her, and all that emotion she’d been keeping bottled up, the shock and the grief and the horror, broke free. She slipped from behind the desk and ran across the thick rug, launched herself into his arms.

“Camille,” he whispered against the side of her face, but he didn’t release her, not for a long, long time. He just held her tight, held her close. “God, Camille.”

Her eyes filled. He’d been in college when she left for Florida. He’d been tall and gangly, with dreams in his eyes. Now he was a man, tall and so much like her father that her heart ached. At thirty-five, Gabe was almost the exact age their father had been….

She pulled back and looked up at him, didn’t try to stop the tears from slipping over her lashes. “You’re really here.”

“Jack called last night.”

Her heart broke a little more. “He’s gone,” she said. “Lambert is finally gone.”

The brown of Gabe’s eyes darkened. “But you did it,” he said. “You got the confession.”

“And the stained glass.”

The voice came from the doorway—and it belonged to Jack. She looked beyond her brother to see him standing there, impossibly tall, so tired and brutally handsome that the breath jammed in her throat. An odd light glowed in his eyes. And in his hands he held the object her father had died to protect. “Jacques.”

Gabe stepped back and slid his hand to hers, squeezed. “You did good, sis.”

She tried to smile, but it hurt.

“Give us a few minutes?” Jack asked, but he didn’t move, not until Gabe pressed a kiss to her cheek and turned to cross the study. Only after the sound of Gabe’s footfalls faded did Jack step inside—and close the door. “Saura says you didn’t sleep.”

“Couldn’t,” she said. “Thought I’d get some of this down on paper while it was still—”

“Don’t.”

The force of that one word stopped her. He moved then, crossed toward her, his steps slow, controlled, deliberate, just as he did everything.

Until he reached her.

Until he reached the sofa by which she stood. Then that punishing veil of self-control fractured, and his eyes burned. He reached for her, put his hands to her shoulders and urged her toward him, but she was already moving, stepping into him as he tilted her face toward his.

His hands found the sides of her face as their mouths met, and any restraint that remained, any tiny crumb, fell away. The kiss was hard and deep and possessive, with no finesse or control, no discipline, only the raw need of a man who no longer wanted to pretend. A man who no longer wanted to deny.

A man who wanted to hold on.

On a dizzying rush Camille slid her arms around him and opened to him, wondered how she’d ever thought she could walk away from this man.

“Do you have any idea,” he muttered against her mouth. “Any idea at all what it did to me to hear you on that phone…”

She slid a hand to his jaw, pressed her fingers to the soft prickle of whiskers. “We’re here now…we’re safe.”

“To know that you were there with him,” he went on, and then he pulled back and she could see his eyes, and in them she could see it all, feel it all. And she knew she’d never be able to close any doors, not when it came to this man. “And that I’d let you walk away—”

“Jack,” she whispered, “you don’t have to do this.”

But something hard and broken flashed through his gaze. “I broke your heart,” he rasped. “Fourteen years ago, when I walked away…”