“Shh, shh. Calm down. You’re okay. Shh.”

Realization came to her gradually. Coburn was leaning over her. He was holding one of her hands in each of his, his thumbs planted solidly in her palms. His voice was a soothing whisper.

“Shh.” His thumbs began massaging small circles into her palms. “Take deep breaths. You’ll be fine.”

But she didn’t breathe deeply. Following one stuttering exhale, she didn’t breathe at all. And when he angled his head back to look down into her face, he stopped breathing too.

His face was close to hers, close enough that she could see his eyes as they looked down at her mouth, then at her chest, making her achingly aware of her breasts. Not even the semi-darkness could dim the blue intensity of his eyes when they reconnected with hers.

In order to stop her convulsing, he’d placed his leg across her thighs. His lap was pressed against her hip. His arousal was unmistakable. And Honor knew that her perfect stillness was a giveaway that she felt it.

It seemed like an eternity that they lay there, frozen in that position, but it was probably only a few seconds. Then he swore viciously as he released her hands and rolled off her. He lay as before on his back, close but not touching. Only now he placed one forearm across his eyes.

“Don’t pull another stunt like that.”

It hadn’t been a stunt, but she didn’t refute him. He hadn’t specified what her punishment would be if she freaked out again. But the gruffness in his voice warned her against testing him.

Chapter 13

One hour shy of daylight the boat belonging to Arleeta Thibadoux was discovered. It appeared to have been dragged into a grove of cypress trees for concealment.

Two deputy sheriffs had been poling their way through the swamp when one of them spotted it with his high-powered light. He and his partner used their cell phones to spread the word, and within half an hour of the discovery, two dozen exhausted but exhilarated law enforcement officers had converged on the site.

Fred Hawkins, who’d been at the police station in downtown Tambour when he got word, was able to get fairly close to the site in the helicopter on loan from N.O.P.D. As soon as the chopper set down, he was picked up in a small motorboat by fellow officers, who conveyed him the rest of the way. Doral was already at the scene when he arrived.

“It took on water,” Doral told him, getting straight to the point. He aimed his flashlight into the partially submerged hull. “At least we have a new starting point.”

“We don’t know for certain it’s Coburn.”

“It’s either him or a bizarre coincidence.” Doral used the beam of the flashlight to spot the blood smears on the oar. “Still bleeding from somewhere. The hell of it is…”

He didn’t finish, but used the flashlight to cut a swath across the surrounding landscape. It was a monotonous, gray, desolate wilderness with nothing to distinguish one square yard of it from another except for whatever form of deadly wildlife might be lurking within its deceptive placidity.

“Yeah.” Fred sighed, catching his brother’s drift. “But as you said, it gives us a fresh start.”

“You’d better call it in.”

“Right.” Fred made the call.

Over the next half hour, more officers arrived, were briefed, and then dispatched to cover new territory. The FBI agents from Tom VanAllen’s office were alerted. “Get word to Tom,” Fred told them. “He needs to know about this immediately. I may need to call on the feds for reinforcement. They’ve got better toys than we do.”

As he lit a cigarette, Doral pulled Fred aside. “What about Stan? Should I call him, get him to round up some of yesterday’s volunteers to pitch in?”

Fred consulted the eastern horizon, or what he could see of it through the dense cypress grove. “Let’s wait till after daylight. Stan knows more about stalking than you and I have forgot. But some of those other boys would be more harm than help.”

Doral exhaled a plume of smoke. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, brother. You don’t want a bunch of volunteers in this posse any more than you want all these extra badges. Or the feds. You don’t want anybody to tree Lee Coburn but your own self.”

Fred grinned. “You always could read me like a book.”

“ ’Cause we think alike.”

They rejoined the others. Maps were consulted. Waterways, which formed intricate loops, were assigned to be explored. “Coburn will be needing drinking water,” Fred reminded the group. Since the oil spill, no right-minded individual would drink water from any of these channels. “Anybody know of any fishing cabins, camps, shacks, sheds, anything like that in this general vicinity? Anyplace he could find potable water?”

Several possibilities were mentioned. Men were sent to check them out. “Approach with caution,” Fred warned them as they set off in the small boats they’d been trolling in all night. “Cut your engines before you get close.”

Doral volunteered to take the road less traveled, and Fred let him. “If anybody can slog through that area without getting lost, you can. Keep your phone handy, and I’ll do the same. You see anything, call me first.”

“You don’t have to ask me twice. Meanwhile, are you going back to the police station?”

“What, and have reporters bugging me?” Fred shook his head. “Look here.” Their map had been spread out on a section of relatively dry ground. The twins hunkered down over it and Fred traced his finger along a faint blue line indicating a long, narrow channel. “See where this eventually leads?”

“To Eddie’s place.”

The twins looked long and hard at each other. Fred spoke first. “Bothers me some.”

Doral said, “You read my mind. Stan was supposed to go out there yesterday evening for a birthday dinner, but he told me later that Honor had canceled the get-together because she and Emily were sick with a stomach thing. Wouldn’t hurt to check on them.”

Fred refolded the map and stuck it in the back pocket of his uniform trousers. “I’ll feel better once I have. Besides, somebody has to search that bayou. Might as well be me.”

When Honor woke up, what surprised her most wasn’t that her hands had been cut free from the headboard, but that she had awakened at all. She hadn’t expected to fall asleep and was amazed that she had. The light outside was pinkish with predawn.

She was alone in the bed.

She vaulted off it and raced to Emily’s room. The door was ajar, just as she’d left it last night. Emily was sleeping peacefully, a tumble of butter-colored curls on her pillow, her face buried in her “bankie,” her plump hand clutching Elmo.

Honor left her and rushed through the living room and into the kitchen beyond. The rooms were empty, dim, and silent. Her keys were missing from the hook beside the back door, and when she looked through the window, she saw that her car wasn’t parked out front.

Coburn was gone.

Perhaps the cranking motor of her car was what had awakened her. But the house had a still quality, indicating to her that his departure might have been earlier than that.

“Thank God, thank God,” she whispered as she rubbed her hands over her chilled upper arms. They were covered with gooseflesh, but that was evidence that she was alive. She hadn’t believed that he would go, leaving her and Emily unscathed. But miraculously they had survived an excruciatingly long day and night spent with a mass murderer.

Relief made her weak.

But only for a moment. She must alert the authorities to what had happened. They could pick up his trail from here. She could call them, give them her car tag number. They—