The Devil's Footprints

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“But Fears had an airtight alibi for that night,” Lukas said.

Esme gave him a sidelong glance. “You think a mother won’t lie to keep her boy out of that kind of trouble?”

“Is that what you think happened?”

“That’s what your daddy thought.”

“Maybe that was his problem,” Lukas said. “He was already dealing with a contaminated crime scene and a witness who couldn’t remember how she happened to be covered in blood. By focusing on Fears, he neglected to look for other suspects.”

Esme studied him for a moment. “You would have done things different, I guess.”

He smiled. “Put it this way. I’m not my father.”

“Maybe not.” She plucked at a button on her sweater as she turned to stare at the back of the DeLaune house. “But I still say you got his eyes.”

Eight

Lukas didn’t really expect to find anything at the DeLaune house. Footprints left on the frozen ground would have been lost once the ice started to thaw. And, too, he had to wonder if Esme had imagined the whole thing. She lived alone and was getting on in years. Her eyesight probably wasn’t as good as it used to be, and the view from her cottage was obscured by all the trees. In the dark, the barren limbs whipping over the roof might have looked like someone running up the steep slope.

But Lukas searched the grounds anyway, because in spite of her advanced years and failing eyesight, Esme Floyd didn’t strike him as the type prone to flights of fantasy. And if someone had been up on that roof in the middle of the night, he damn well wanted to know who it was.

He glanced back at the cottage, saw Esme in the window and gave a quick wave. Then he walked around to the front of the house and used her key to let himself in.

The house was cold and deathly still. Like a tomb, he thought. An apt description, since the place had seen its share of grief and tragedy. And now the owner, the last of the DeLaune family save for the youngest daughter, was in the hospital with only weeks, possibly days, to live.

Lukas lingered in the foyer as he glanced around the silent rooms, taking in the shrouded furniture and the tightly closed drapes and shutters that blocked most of the sunlight. Esme had told him that she still came over every other day to clean and air out the rooms, but the house already had an abandoned smell even though Lukas suspected there wasn’t a speck of dust to be found in the entire place.

The living room was to his left, the dining room and kitchen to his right. Straight ahead, an oak staircase with a polished banister led to a long, second-story gallery and the bedrooms.

Lukas began in the living room and made sure all the windows were secure before he slid back a set of pocket doors that led into a study. As he stepped inside, he sniffed the air. The scent of leather and pipe tobacco still hung heavy in the room.

The gloomy silence pecked at his nerves, so he opened the drapes. Sunlight flooded in and he turned, taking in the room in one sweep. Glass-fronted bookcases lined the wall behind a fine old mahogany desk, and a leather sofa and two armchairs were grouped around a brick fireplace.

In spite of the handsome furnishings, the room was nondescript, like a picture clipped from a magazine. It was understated and dignified, and yet there was a hint of something unpleasant that Lukas didn’t understand until he remembered what Esme had said earlier. James DeLaune had carried his daughter’s body back from the farmhouse and placed her in his study.

Lukas walked around the sofa, sliding his hand across the cracked leather as his gaze lifted to the carved oak mantel above the fireplace. It was crowded with photographs and they were all of Rachel DeLaune.

And in every shot, her smile charmed and mesmerized, but there was something haunting in her eyes.

If she’d lived, she would have grown into a knockout. Already at sixteen, she’d had a smoldering innocence that could drive a man wild. Maybe even compel him to kill.

Was that why she’d been murdered so viciously? Had she been the victim of a boyfriend’s jealous rage…or the target of a madman’s fantasy?

There wasn’t a single photograph of James DeLaune’s youngest daughter. Esme said that Sarah and her father had never gotten along, and as Lukas studied the shrine to James’s dead daughter, he began to understand what his youngest must have faced. Here in this room, Rachel’s presence was almost tangible. Here in this room, the old man had tried desperately to keep his favorite daughter alive, but the only way he could do that was by shutting everyone else out. Including Sarah.

Lukas reached for one of the photographs, then froze when he heard a noise over his left shoulder.

He turned, almost expecting—dreading—to see Rachel DeLaune’s ghost slipping up behind him. When he found the room empty, he let out a quick breath.

Exiting the study, he walked back through the living room to the foyer where he stood listening to the house. The noise was coming from upstairs. Someone was moving about on the second floor.

He unzipped his jacket to make his weapon more accessible as he quietly climbed the stairs, his gaze lifted to the shadows above him.

The rooms on the second floor opened onto the gallery, and as he neared the top of the stairs, he zeroed in on the door to his far right. It was slightly ajar and he could tell the sound was coming from inside that room.

Keeping his shoulder pressed to the wall, he drew his gun and gripped it with both hands, barrel pointed at the floor, so anyone waiting inside the room wouldn’t be able to knock it from his hands.

Pushing the door open with the toe of his boot, he flattened himself against the wall and waited a heartbeat before easing around the doorjamb and through the bedroom doorway. Crouching, he quickly shifted his gaze from one corner to the next, noting the position of the bed, nightstand, dresser and desk.

No one was there. The room was empty.

And it was freezing inside. Colder than anywhere else in the house. Someone had cracked a window and frigid air rushed in. Lukas hadn’t noticed the open window from the outside, but now he realized it was the source of both the cold and the sound. When the wind gusted a certain way, a tree limb scraped across the glass panes, like a bony hand trying to find a way in.

Lukas wondered if Esme had left the window open the last time she’d come over to air out the house.

Holstering his weapon, he took a quick look out the window. The tree grew right up against the house. Someone could easily scale the branches and climb onto the roof. And maybe that same someone had found a window unlocked and crawled in out of the cold last night.

Better have another look around outside, he decided. Maybe he’d missed a footprint.

As he started to turn away from the window, he saw a reflected movement behind him in the glass; his heart jumped as he whirled. His arm came up, but complacency and exhaustion slowed his reflexes. He barely deflected the blow as the lamp connected with his skull and his knees folded like the flimsy legs on Esme’s ironing board.

Ears ringing, he fell back, unable to catch himself. He sensed a motion toward the door, heard a rush of footsteps, but he couldn’t seem to focus as he crashed into the wall and slid down to the floor.

Cold air rushed over Lukas’s face, rousing him. He smelled damp earth and more faintly, the scent of something burning.

Someone leaned over him and said something, and he came alert then, throwing up a defensive arm as he reached for his gun with the other hand.

“Hey, take it easy. I’m trying to help you.”

Slowly the face floating over him came into focus. It was Esme Floyd’s grandson. Lukas barely knew the man, but he had no trouble placing him. He’d seen Curtis around town a lot lately. He had a tendency to stand out, not because of his race, but because of his looks. Handsome and graceful with the light skin and green eyes of a Creole, he also had hints of his grandmother in his features. The wide nose and high cheekbones, the quiet dignity and keen intelligence. The way his eyes seemed to size Lukas up with one sweep.

“What happened?” he asked. “Do you remember?”

Lukas put a hand to the back of his head and tentatively touched the egg-size lump. “Somebody slipped up behind me and coldcocked me good, that’s what. I didn’t hear a damn thing until he was right on me. It’ll be hell living that down.”

“If I were you, I’d be more concerned about the damage to my brain than my ego. You took a nasty blow to the head.”

“I’ve had worse. Nothing a couple of aspirin won’t take care of.” Lukas pushed himself up and tried not to react to the pain that shot through the base of his skull.

But Curtis saw the wince and said sternly, “We need to get you to the hospital. You probably have a concussion.”

“I appreciate the professional opinion, Dr. Floyd, but like I said, I’ve had a lot worse.” Lukas glanced at the smashed lamp on the floor, then his gaze slowly lifted. “What are you doing here anyway?”

Curtis sat back on his heels and stared at Lukas for a moment before getting to his feet. Something flared in his eyes, an icy disdain for any real or imagined innuendo in Lukas’s question. “So that’s it. You come to, see a black man standing over you and your first instinct is to assume I’m the one who hit you.”

“I never said that.”

“That was the implication, though, wasn’t it?”

“It was just a simple question, Dr. Floyd. No offense intended.”

Curtis shrugged. “Not that there’s any reason I should have to justify myself to you, but my grandmother sent me over here. We’re going out to lunch, and she wanted to know if you’d found anything before we go.”

Lukas sniffed the air. “You smell something burning?”

“No, but it’s probably someone down the street burning leaves.”

“It’s too wet to burn leaves.” Lukas was sitting upright now. His gaze went back to the window as a gust of wind blew away the scent, bringing a fresh chill into the room. “Damn, that air’s cold.”

Curtis had retreated to the door and stood with one shoulder propped against the jamb. His professional concern had dissolved, and now he made no move to close the window or offer assistance to Lukas as he struggled to his feet.

Lukas went over to the window and glanced out. A tree limb scraped against the panes, reminding him that he’d been standing in that same spot when his attacker had slipped up behind him.

Now as he shoved the window down, he saw only his own reflection in the glass. But he had a feeling he was missing something. He’d seen something, heard something that now seemed to elude him.

He turned. Curtis was still in the doorway, watching him through narrowed eyes. Beneath a brown leather jacket, he wore a crisp white shirt that brought to mind Miss Esme at her ironing board.

For some reason, a snippet of their conversation suddenly came back to Lukas. “You think a mother won’t lie to keep her boy out of that kind of trouble?”

“Did you see anyone on your way over here?” he asked. “Somebody out on the street maybe?”

“Not that I noticed. Of course, you have only my word on that.” Curtis’s expression was inscrutable except for the glimmer of contempt in his eyes. That was all too easily discernible.

He straightened, his every move elegant and unhurried in spite of the simmering hostility. He looked to be a man who knew exactly where he was going and how he intended to get there. And Lukas had a feeling he wouldn’t let anyone stand in his way.

“I need to get back before my grandmother starts to worry,” Curtis said. “Are you sure you won’t let me take you to the hospital? If you were my patient, I’d order a CAT scan, an MRI and depending on the results, an overnight stay in the hospital.”

“For one little bump on the noggin?”

“It’s always best to eliminate unpleasant possibilities.”

“On that, we agree,” Lukas said. “Which is why the only place I’m headed at the moment is out to my car for my fingerprint kit.” He squatted beside the broken lamp. “You didn’t touch anything in here, did you?”

“You mean anything other than your pulse? I’m afraid I did.” Curtis folded his arms. “I had to move the lamp out of the way to examine you.”

“Then we’ll need to get a set of your prints for comparison. Assuming, of course, you’re not already in the system.”

Lukas had meant it as a joke, but when he glanced up, he could see Curtis’s nostrils quiver as he let out a sharp breath.

“Sorry. I guess that wasn’t so funny.”

The skin on Curtis’s face was suddenly as gray as the winter sky, and when their gazes met, he had to look quickly away. In the space of a heartbeat, the elegant facade had crumbled, and behind those green eyes, vulnerability weakened his contempt.

“Is there something you need to tell me?” Lukas asked softly, taken aback by the man’s swift change.

Curtis lifted a hand and wiped it across his face, as if he could somehow scrub away the cracks and restore his stoic demeanor. “I was in some trouble in college,” he finally said. “Everything eventually got cleared up and the charges were dropped, but I was booked, processed, whatever you want to call it. I don’t know whether my fingerprints ended up in the system or not.”

“You want to tell me what happened?”

“No. It’s in the past.” He wore a pinkie ring on his right hand and the fingers of his left hand kept tugging at the gold. “My grandmother doesn’t know about any of this and I’d like to keep it that way. My father’s put her through a lot over the years. I don’t want her worried about me.”

“I can understand that. But you know what they say about secrets. They have a way of coming back to haunt you when you least expect it.”

“You sound as if you’ve had some experience.”

Lukas shrugged. “We all have secrets. Just take a look around this room.”

Curtis’s gaze wandered over Lukas’s face. “What are you talking about?”

He waved a hand, encompassing the blue walls and white linens. The posters of rock stars and screen idols. The dressing table strewn with makeup, perfume bottles and corsage ribbons. “This was Rachel DeLaune’s room, wasn’t it?”

Curtis pressed his lips together. “You ask that as if you assume I should know. But I was never allowed anywhere in this house except the kitchen.”

“But you knew this was Rachel’s room. How could you not? Even I know it’s hers. All you have to do is take a look around. I doubt anything’s been changed since the night she died.” Lukas paused, letting a long silence settle between them. “You can still feel her presence in here, can’t you? Tell me what she was like.”

The green eyes deepened angrily. “That’s not really what you want to know, is it?”

So he had more than just his grandmother’s nose and cheekbones, Lukas thought. He’d also inherited her insight. “No, you’re right. What I really want to know is if she was seeing anyone when she died. I can’t find a mention of a boyfriend in the police report. But a beautiful girl like that? She must have had plenty of guys sniffing around.” He walked over to the dressing table, and for a moment, swore he could still smell her perfume. After fourteen years.