“He was behind the hit, not the phone call.”

“Oh, right. My arrival was a shock. I showed up, and you had to scrub plan A.” She gestured with helplessness. “We’re back to where we started. I don’t know who called or why he sent me to that bar.”

He didn’t react for the longest time. Eventually he shrugged and said, “Okay,” but his flippancy suggested that it wasn’t at all okay.

“You’ve got to believe me!”

“I said okay.” Methodically he removed the battery from her phone before putting both in his front pocket. Encircling her biceps with his hand, he pulled her up off the crate and drew her toward the door. “It’s starting to rain. You need to go outside while you can.”

“Please, listen, I—”

“I was listening.”

“But I don’t think you believe me. Do you?”

When they reached the door, he pushed it open, then stood there, his breathing hard, his fingers growing steadily tighter around her arm.

“I’m not lying, I swear.”

Suddenly he brought her around to face him. He’d never looked more intimidating or forbidding.

“I’m telling you everything I know. Please believe me. Believe—”

“Hush, Jordie.”

The command was softly spoken but imperious. He brought his mouth down on hers ungently and without restraint. The back of her head was encompassed by his hand and held in place with inescapable strength. His other hand settled on her neck.

While his thumb stroked the sensitive underside of her chin, his stern lips pressured hers to separate, and when they did, the sleek glide of his tongue against hers caused an overspill of heat throughout her. Angling his head the other way, he made an even deeper foray into her mouth.

But then he groaned with frustration and raised his head. “I had to do that. Just once.”

Abruptly he let go of her and pushed her through the open door, soundly pulling it closed behind her.

Before she fully registered what had happened, she was outside, standing in the falling mist, staring into the darkness, her entire body pulsing. With trembling fingers, she touched her damp lips, and even as she did, a whimper escaped them. A whimper of longing, mortification, torment. His breath had been hot on her face, his body hard, his voice gruff, his eyes alight in the darkness. All of him, masterful and possessive.

I had to do that. Just once.

Once.

The qualifier made it clear.

He was going to kill her.

Chapter 18

It was after nightfall by the time the helicopter set down near the convenience store where Josh Bennett reportedly had bought groceries, some toiletries, and a lottery ticket. Joe and Hick had asked to interview the store clerk and the customer at the site. The two were waiting for them at the register when they entered the store.

Both seemed excited to be in on something as big as the recapture of the man who’d turned FBI informant and then had the audacity to bail. As the loud, barrel-chested man shook hands with them, he said, “Josh Bennett screwed y’all, too, didn’t he? Just like he and Panella did all those other folks.”

When asked, he described Bennett’s appearance that morning and gave them his impressions of the fugitive. “Truth be told, I was paying more attention to what was on the TV.”

When it came the cashier’s turn, she actually expressed concern for the runaway. “I sensed there was something the matter with him.”

“Was he injured, ill, what?” Joe asked while Hick was busily typing their responses into his iPad.

“No, he seemed fine when he came in. He didn’t start looking sickly till he was filling in his lottery numbers. That’s when we started watching the news. I guess that’s how he learned about what happened to his sister last night. Must’ve been a shock. You gotta feel a little sorry for him.”

Hick and Joe looked at each other, tacitly agreeing that they couldn’t work up one iota of sympathy for Joshua Bennett. Joe went back to the cashier. “Did he mention anything about the kidnapping or murder?”

Both she and the man shook their heads. She said, “He just wrapped up his business like he was in a hurry to get going. He was jumpy. Sweating. He was wearing khakis, sorta like the military. I figured him fresh back from Syria or someplace. You know, post-traumatic stress.”

“Did he appear to be armed?” Joe asked.

The man answered. “No. But can’t say what was in his backpack.”

The two had little more of value to report, although the man remembered seeing Josh set off on foot after he left the store. “He was walking along the shoulder, headed west. He had on the backpack and was carrying the bags of stuff he bought. It crossed my mind to go after him and offer him a lift, but then I got distracted buying my own lottery tickets, and by the time I went out and got in my pickup, he was nowhere to be seen.”

Joe asked to see the video from the store’s security cameras. He, Hick, and a handful of local law officers watched it several times, but it revealed nothing of significance beyond what the witnesses had already told them.

However, Hick did comment on the change in Bennett’s appearance. “I’m not sure I would have recognized him immediately.”

Joe reluctantly agreed.

Law enforcement departments from nearby municipalities and the parish SO, as well as state troopers and U.S. marshals, had been mobilized to begin a search, although no one was optimistic about picking up Bennett’s trail until daylight.

So it was with some surprise that Joe received word that debris had been discovered in a clearing in the woods not far away. “Don’t let anybody touch anything till we get there.”

The clearing was a distance from the highway and accessed by a footpath which everyone was careful to stay off of as they thrashed their way through the dark woods.

The deputy who’d made the discovery led the way to a live oak tree that Joe estimated to be at least a century old, if not twice that.

“Everybody who grew up around here knows this path and this tree,” the deputy told them. “Teenagers buy beer at the convenience store, usually with fake IDs, come here to drink, make out. In high school we called it the knock-up tree because…well, you know. That’s how come I remembered it and thought to check. Sure enough.”

He shone his flashlight on the litter scattered over the network of large roots that snaked along the ground at the base of the tree. Joe didn’t get his hopes up. The trash could have been left by Josh Bennett or just as easily by lustful teenagers with illegally purchased six-packs.

With care, he squatted and studied the various product wrappers and empty plastic bags. Among them, he picked out a cash register receipt. It was from the store, and the time stamp coincided with when Bennett had been there. One of the purchases was a Lotto ticket.

The deputy said, “Something else I noticed on the path. There’s one set of shoe prints coming in this way, another set going back out toward the highway.”

“He changed clothes while he was back here?” Hick asked.

“That’d be my guess,” the deputy replied. “Smart guy like him, prob’ly knew he’d been caught on security cameras inside the store. He’d want to switch clothes quick.”