The Valentine Hostage Read online

  “No one was injured during the daring escape, but Chief Monk has warned the public that DeCarlo is extremely dangerous and undoubtedly armed. Anyone spotting him should not approach him, but should call the police immediately. That hot-line number, again, is 555-HUNT.

  “This has been a WKCK special update. We’ll bring you more news on the story as it breaks.”

  “Turn it off,” Ben said.

  Monique reached over and pressed the button. “They don’t even know I’m with you,” she murmured.

  “No. Everyone’s watching for a man on his own.” And the bulletin had said nothing about the cops widening their search beyond the city yet

  That had started him breathing a whole lot easier. As long as things went according to plan in Houma, he’d get clean away for sure.

  “Nobody’s going to be looking for me,” Monique whispered. “It’ll be days before anyone even realizes I’m missing.”

  When he glanced at her, her big brown eyes were luminous with tears.

  “And…before anyone even thinks about trying to find me,” she added, her voice catching, “you’ll have killed me, won’t you.”

  For a moment he was silent. Then he said, “Not unless you make me.”

  Looking back at the road, he realized his words had surprised him. Or maybe it was the fact they were true that was surprising.

  Once, not that long ago, he’d wanted to kill her. After his first trial had ended, he used to sit in his cell wishing he could kill all five of the eyewitnesses who’d testified against him.

  But he’d had two years to work through those feelings, and he’d gradually come to terms with the fact that the witnesses had honestly believed they were telling the truth. That they’d been certain it was him they’d seen in Augustine’s.

  So he no longer hated Monique. And at the moment, he actually felt sorry for her. She was clearly convinced he was going to kill her.

  He glanced at her again, thinking that, terrified or not, she was a remarkably beautiful woman. Of course, he’d been aware of that all along—even back when he’d hated her guts, when she’d been on the stand testifying against him.

  Monique LaRoquette was the sort of woman guys in Angola dreamed about. A perfectly oval face, creamy skin, high cheekbones and that long, reddishgolden hair.

  The only thing wrong with her looks, to his mind at least, was that she was too thin. But he knew that went with being a model.

  Not that she’d have been modeling lately, he reflected. She’d hardly have a high-profile job when she was in the witness protection program.

  After a minute or two of trying not to think about how frightened she was, he looked across the car once more. “I’m really not going to hurt you, you know. Not as long as you do what I tell you.”

  She merely gazed at him, her expression saying she still didn’t believe him.

  That worried him. It might mean she’d have another try at getting away while they were stopped in Houma. Or maybe she’d cause a scene to draw attention to them.

  Then what would he do? Shoot her? Turn himself into the murderer the world already believed he was?

  Wishing to hell he’d never spotted her outside that courthouse, he decided he’d better try harder to convince her she was safe.

  “Look…Monique, I didn’t bring you along with the idea of killing you. I just needed to have a woman with me.”

  “And I was the lucky one you picked.”

  He swore under his breath. He could do without sarcasm when he’d only been trying to reassure her.

  “Believe me,” he muttered, “I’m not any happier that I picked you than you are. But I can’t let you go right now. You already know too much.”

  “I don’t know anything. I don’t even—”

  “You know I made it out of the city, that the cops are just wasting their time searching there. You know which direction I’ve been heading. So I’m not letting you go now. End of story. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to hurt you.”

  Focusing on the road once more, he gave himself a swift mental kick in the butt. Snapping at her like that was hardly the way to convince her he wouldn’t harm her.

  They reached Houma and he drove across the Williams Avenue bridge, made his way to the street he wanted, then drove slowly down it until he spotted the black Bronco.

  Seeing it gave him a distinct sense of relief. Once they’d ditched the Caprice, even if the cops somehow picked up his trail, they’d be searching for the wrong car.

  Parking, he clipped the gun to his belt again and reached for Monique’s hand. “Come on, we’re changing cars.”

  When her gaze flickered to the world outside, he knew exactly what was going through her mind.

  “Don’t even think about it,” he said. “Because I will kill you if you try anything stupid.”

  “I’VE NEVER RIDDEN in a Bronco before,” Monique said once they’d left Houma behind. “It’s a smoother ride than I’d have expected. Do you call it a van or a wagon, or what?” That was a pretty inane question, of course, but it was the only one she could think of.

  When Ben glanced at her, obviously surprised, she tried to smile.

  She couldn’t quite manage it Not while he was driving with his gun pointed in her direction. Still, she thought she was doing a reasonable job of concealing her fear now.

  And that was a good start, because it didn’t matter if she was shaking inside. Or that she hated him with all her heart The important thing was convincing him that she really did believe he was going to set her free at some point

  If he thought that, he might gradually let down his guard. And if he let it down far enough, maybe she’d be able to escape.

  “You can call it a four-by-four,” he said at last “Or some people call them trucks, even though they’re not.”

  “Oh. Well, whatever, it’s nice and…sporty.”

  That earned her another uncertain glance. He clearly hadn’t expected chitchat

  But she’d been racking her brain for a plan, and the best one she’d come up with was to act civilly. And downright pleasant if she could handle it.

  For some reason, she’d thought about the so-called Stockholm Syndrome—the one that caused hostages to develop positive feelings toward their kidnappers. And it had occurred to her there might be a similar syndrome that made kidnappers grow fond of their victims.

  Ben was hardly likely to grow fond of her, though, if she was acting antagonistic.

  Not that there was really much hope he’d start liking her even if she did her best to charm the socks off him. Not considering that she’d helped convict him of murder. But being sociable had to be worth a try.

  “Exactly where are we?” she asked. “You said I knew which direction we’ve been going, but I really don’t. I was too scared to notice anything at first”.

  Ben kept his eyes on the road, trying to decide whether he wanted to participate in Monique’s game of Let’s Be Friends.

  She wasn’t much of an actress, so it was obvious what she was up to, but he had to give her an A for guts. Here she was, trapped with a man she was certain was a cold-blooded killer, and she was trying to converse as if they were relaxing over mint juleps.

  It would take more than a little friendly conversation, though, to make him forget that if he gave her the slightest opportunity to make a run for it, she would—and straight to the cops, too.

  But what the hell. It probably wouldn’t hurt to go along with her game.

  After all, he was pretty safe now, so he no longer had to be on red alert every second. And since he was stuck with her, they might as well get along.

  Finally looking at her, he said, “I guess there’s no reason not to tell you where we are. We’re southwest of New Orleans, in Terrebonne Parish, and if we kept going in the direction we’re headed, we’d reach the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “We’re not going that far, though?”

  “No, we’ll be stopping north of it But we’ll be in serious bayou country.”


  “Serious bayou country,” she repeated. “You mean as in major swampland? Like Okefenokee in Georgia?”

  He smiled a little at that—which made him realize he was definitely breathing a lot easier.

  “There’s not really any comparison,” he told her. “I doubt Okefenokee’s even forty miles across, whereas the entire gulf coast of Louisiana’s lined with marshes and swampland.”

  “And the gulf coastline is how long?”

  “Oh…the way it winds in and out, I guess twelve or thirteen hundred miles.”

  That news clearly upset her, but it was just as well. If she tried taking off on him after they reached their destination, she’d end up as some gator’s dinner.

  They drove without speaking for several miles, then she said, “Ben? Now that you’ve escaped, what are you planning to do?”

  “There’s a cabin in the swamps that used to belong to an old hermit Almost nobody knows about it, so we’re going to hole up there.” His answer silenced her for another few minutes.

  “And after we’ve holed up for a bit?” she asked at last. “I mean, you aren’t thinking we’ll stay in the swamp for months and months, are you?”

  “We’ll stay for as long as it takes.”

  “What do you mean? Until they stop searching for you?”

  “Something like that”.

  “And after they have?”

  He took a deep breath, then looked at her once more. “After they have, I’m going to find out who really murdered my parents.”

  MONIQUE HAD BEEN SO LOST in thought she’d barely noticed when they ran out of pavement Now, though, the Bronco was bouncing along a deserted dirt road she doubted had seen another vehicle in days.

  This was the serious swampland Ben had promised. They were traveling alongside water, the shoreline thick with willows and huge cypresses draped with thick curtains of Spanish moss. And as they sped ever farther from civilization she was feeling frightened half to death all over again.

  Who would have thought things could get worse than being abducted by a murderer? But the prospect of being held hostage in a swamp was the proverbial icing on the cake.

  He was calling the shots, though, and if she didn’t go along with what he wanted he’d kill her.

  Doing her best to ignore the probability that he’d kill her, anyway, she turned her thoughts back to his last statement

  She knew she should have picked up on it long before this. But since he’d said he was going to find out who’d really murdered his parents, she hadn’t uttered a word. And neither had he.

  She had the feeling that he intended to outwait her even if it took forever, and it just might. She was too scared of saying the wrong thing to open her mouth.

  All that reading she’d done about psychopaths had taught her a fair bit She knew they were intelligent but totally without conscience. And that most were accomplished liars and could charm the birds out of the trees. Which explained, of course, why they so often got away with the things they did.

  But despite what she did know about them, she’d never really been able to understand their way of thinking. And Ben was a concrete example of that.

  He knew she’d seen him kill his mother and father. So why on earth was he bothering to pretend he was innocent?

  Staring out at the swampland once more, she wished she hadn’t begun thinking about psychopaths. Because now all she could think of was what would happen when Ben got her to some secluded cabin. And imagining what he had in mind was bringing her close to tears.

  “Monique?” he said, finally breaking the silence.

  “Yes?” When she looked uneasily over at him he was watching her. Then he turned his gaze back to the road ahead.

  “Yes?” she repeated after a moment.

  “Look…I don’t really expect you to believe I didn’t kill my parents, but I didn’t”.

  That made her wonder if he wanted her to tell him she did believe him. But that would be a ludicrous statement when she’d been an eyewitness.

  “You’ve claimed that all along,” she said at last.

  “I claimed it because it was the truth. The killer looked enough like me that you all identified me in court. But I wasn’t in Augustine’s that day. And I’ve never killed anyone, let alone my parents.”

  She gazed at his chiseled profile for another minute, then looked away. That had been his defense, of course. The killer had supposedly been someone made up to look like him.

  And he’d had an alibi of sorts, as well. His sister, Maria, had sworn he was having lunch with her, in her apartment, at the time the murders took place.

  The media had called her a compelling witness. She’d even reduced some people in the courtroom to tears when she’d testified that she and Ben had been planning an anniversary party for their parents at the exact moment they were shot.

  But the jury had chosen to believe the truth, not Maria.

  “You followed the entire retrial, didn’t you,” Ben said.

  Monique looked at him again.

  “I mean, you were interested enough to be in that courtroom for the verdict. So after you testified, you must have followed the rest of the trial in the news.”

  “I heard bits and pieces about it,” she said, choosing her words carefully. It wouldn’t be smart to admit that she really had followed it closely. She didn’t want him asking her opinion about anything. Not when her answers might antagonize him.

  “You heard about our star witness, Sandor Rossi, backing off from testifying?”

  “I…yes, I remember hearing his name, but I really didn’t catch the details.”

  “No? Well it was what Rossi told my lawyers that enabled them to get the retrial. He claimed he knew who was behind murdering my father and setting me up to take the fall.”

  When Ben glanced at her again, Monique nodded that she was listening—absently noting he’d said father rather than parents.

  His defense had made a big point of the fact that Ben had been close to his mother. And that if he’d actually been the shooter, he’d certainly never have killed her.

  Bethany DeCarlo, they’d claimed, had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was the only reason the man who’d been paid to kill Antonio, the man made up to look like Ben, had shot her as well.

  “At any rate,” Ben said, drawing Monique back to the moment, “Rossi provided enough facts that we were certain he did know the truth.”

  “Aah,” she said slowly, thinking this conversation was truly bizarre. Ben had been found guilty twice. Did he honestly think he was going to convince a witness for the prosecution that he was innocent?

  He glanced at her, clearly expecting more than just an “aah.”

  She thought rapidly, deciding the smartest thing might be to go along with him, to sound as if maybe he was convincing her.

  “Why,” she asked, “didn’t this Sandor Rossi testify at your first trial?”

  “He said he’d just been too scared to come forward. But I’m sure that was only part of it He probably got paid to keep his mouth shut”

  “Then why did he come forward two years later?”

  “Well, he told my lawyers it was because he knows my uncle—works for him off and on. And he knew my uncle figured this was an awful blow to the family name.”

  “Your Uncle Dominick?” she said, the question slipping out before she realized she shouldn’t have asked.

  Ben eyed her for a moment, making her extremely nervous. “How did you know his name?”

  “I…I must have heard it in the news or something.”

  “During one of those stories,” he muttered, “about the Dixie Mafia. About how my father was the head of a crime family, and how now my Uncle Dominick’s in charge. As if that automatically meant I was part of it all.”

  That wasn’t a topic she wanted to touch with the proverbial ten-foot pole, so she quickly said, “You didn’t finish telling me about Sandor Rossi. The way you put it, that he told your lawyers h
e’d come forward because he knew your uncle, it didn’t sound as if you think that’s true.”

  “I don’t I think he only talked to my lawyers because somebody made it worth his while.”

  “You mean, someone paid him again? But this time it was to tell what he knew?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well who was it?”

  Ben merely shrugged.

  “But you must know who paid him off. If he was helping you, then you must…” She bit her tongue, realizing she was treading on dangerous ground again.

  “Actually, I don’t know. I asked my lawyers, but they said nobody had. That Rossi’s conscience had just been bothering him.”

  “And is he a man with a conscience?”

  “He’s a man who’d rob his own mother for spare change.”

  “Aah,” she murmured once more. So Sandor Rossi had only agreed to testify because someone had made it worth his while. Then he’d changed his mind.

  But did that mean he’d taken the money with no real intention of testifying? Or that after he’d been paid off, a different someone had convinced him it wouldn’t be wise to help Ben?

  Looking out of the Bronco once again, she wondered who’d bribed Rossi to tell whatever he knew. Or who’d concocted a story for him to tell—which was far more likely what had happened.

  Ben’s uncle? That didn’t seem very likely. From what she’d heard, Dominick DeCarlo was convinced of Ben’s guilt.

  So maybe it was Ben’s lawyers who’d trumped up a new defense. There’d certainly been something irregular going on with that defense team. It had been headed by the top criminal lawyer in New Orleans, the almost invincible Ezra Dean Slaughter. But part way through the trial he’d abruptly removed himself from the case—or had been removed by authorities. She wasn’t quite clear on that point.

  Of course, she couldn’t rule out Ben as the one behind the sudden new evidence. Or it could even have been his sister. After all, Maria had gone out on a limb in court to help Ben—perjuring herself by swearing he’d been with her at the time of the murders. So it wasn’t hard to believe she’d try bribery to get him a retrial.