“I’m hearin’ a lot of excuses, Robert, but nothin’ I need to hear,” Saria persisted.

“My leopard wouldn’t calm down and he came here last night and raked a tree and marked the yard up, that’s all.” The confession came out in a hurried rush.

There was a long silence. Clearly Saria was horrified. Bijou didn’t quite understand why Robert’s deed was so horrible so she remained very quiet, just waiting.

“You challenged Drake for leadership?” Saria asked, incredulous. “Are you crazy?”

Robert hastily shook his head. “No. No way. I’m tellin’ you, my leopard was insane with the smell of a female hussy, and she was flirtin’ with me. It wasn’t my fault. You have to tell Drake that. You have to explain about Remy jumpin’ me.”

“Remy did not jump you,” Bijou snapped, unable to stop herself. “You charged him. I was there, and you can’t exactly pretend you’re innocent when there was an eyewitness.”

Robert refused to look at her, instead looking to his brother. “She’d lie for Remy. She’d do anythin’ for him. She’s his whore . . .”

Saria slapped him hard. “Get out of my house now. Dion, get him out of here before I call Drake and tell him the whole sorry story.”

Robert howled, grabbing his already bruised face. “You can’t throw me out. You can’t. Remy already hates me and he’s goin’ to come in here and accuse me of murder. Last night. I was there. He’ll know I was there and he’ll arrest me just to get me out of his way.” He glared at his brother. “I told Dion everything and he betrayed me. He called it in anonymously, but now everyone will know I was there.”

13

REMY stared at the body hanging from the tree there in the swamp. They were very close to Saria’s property, at the very point where he and Bijou had been last night. The murder had to have taken place no more than an hour after they’d passed through the area, if that. He tried to remember if he’d heard or scented anything unusual as he moved closer to the crime scene. His leopard had been concentrating on only one thing—his mate in heat. He hadn’t been the least bit interested in anything else.

He took two more steps and immediately recognized the man. Ryan Cooper had died hard. He’d been alive when he’d been cut open, the noose tight around his throat, restricting his breathing but not doing its job before the bone harvester had begun carving him up. Remy hadn’t liked Cooper, but no one deserved to die this way.

It seemed a little surreal that just hours earlier he’d been angry with the man for taunting Bijou and then daring to lay his hands on her and now, not only was he dead, but he’d died so close to where the leopards had been running. Was it really a coincidence?

“This is ugly,” Gage said. “Really ugly. Cooper was alive for a while.”

“The altar is, as usual, immaculate, but the blood spatter and pools go everywhere else.” Blood ran in ribbons and streams, all over the ground, soaking into the vegetation and coloring all the grasses a dark red. The ground looked macabre, a hellish nightmare of a stained leaves and dark, twisted branches.

Remy crouched down and studied the ground. Something was off. He’d been at four similar crime scenes years earlier and Pete Morgan’s murder in the swamp just days earlier. They’d all been identical other than the strange seven-knot string found in the bowl of Pete’s blood. Each crime scene had been immaculate, not a single footprint, no hair or fiber to be found. There were no prints on anything, not the rocks making up the frame of the altar or anywhere else. But . . .

Remy stiffened. “Gage.” He glanced up at his brother, waited until Gage made his way over and very subtly, covering the gesture, pointed to the smudged, partial print hidden among the leaves.

Gage closed his eyes briefly. “Leopard,” he mouthed.

Remy nodded and indicated with his chin the few hairs stuck in the blood on a cypress trunk. “One of ours, and I think I know who,” he whispered softly. “Damn him for this. It’s goin’ to cause a huge mess. Every hunter from here to hell and back is goin’ to be in the swamp with guns.”

“And every missin’ animal and strange death will be blamed on the Rougarou. We’ll be getting’ calls every night from nervous drunks and people alone to go check out their homes for them,” Gage added. “Who?”

“Last night, Robert Lanoux challenged me for Bijou. My leopard drove his off and I made certain he’d feel his lesson for the next week or two, but it didn’t deter him at all. Later, he showed up at the Inn and left a challenge for Drake for leadership of the lair.”

“Is he out of his mind?” Gage asked, disbelief in his voice. “Robert can’t take Drake. He’s never been great in battle. In fact, I thought Drake had discussed Robert goin’ to Borneo to learn a few skills.”

“He refused to go,” Remy said. “Drake didn’t push it, because there was no proof he was doin’ anything that could put the lair in harm’s way.”

“Could he be our killer?” Gage asked. “He was pretty tight with Cooper. They drank a lot together, and Dion suspected they might be runnin’ drugs or doing something else illegal because Robert has a lot of money, but wasn’t workin’. He questioned Robert about the money and Robert refused to talk to him about it. Dion was pretty worried about what he might have gotten himself into.”