Savage Nature - Christine Feehan [166]
“Show her the scars on your back,” Drake snapped.
Saria glared at him. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“The point is, he hurt her,” Drake said.
“I know,” Charisse admitted in a low tone. “He told me. He cried. He said he could barely control his leopard—that his leopard went crazy on him the moment he was close to Saria. He couldn’t stop his cat from reacting to her. I hadn’t considered that and neither did he. Her leopard didn’t rise because she couldn’t scent his, and that made his leopard crazy. I should have known, but all I was thinkin’ about was getting’ Mama off his back.” She looked at Saria steadily. “I’m sorry. Armande was sorry too.”
“If your brother was so fucking sorry,” Remy snarled, “why did he go after my sister with a gun?”
Drake was very glad he wasn’t the one asking, but he would have if Saria’s brother hadn’t.
Charisse moistened her lips. “His leopard has been goin’ crazy lately and Robert’s too. It has to be the flowers, they must have been drinkin’ together somewhere in the swamp near the flowers. That’s the only explanation I can come up with. When I asked him, he shook his head and said he felt crazy inside.”
“Where’s Armande now?” Remy demanded.
“I don’t know,” Charisse said. “He went to bed around midnight, but I heard him leave again about five-thirty this morning. I was in my bedroom cryin’ and I heard him talkin’ on his cell phone and then he walked down the hall and paused by my door like he might come in and talk to me, but he didn’t. He went outside and I heard the car start up. I got up, went to Saria’s house lookin’ for her and then came here.”
“Was he acting abnormal last night?”
Charisse shrugged. “There was an upset last night. Mama was really ugly. She was so angry with me for being upset over breakin’ up with Mahieu. She broke all the dishes in the kitchen and tore up a sweater he bought for me when it turned cold on a date we went on. She tore it into strips and threw it in my face. She kept slappin’ me until Armande dragged her away. Then she began weeping and told him I was embarrassin’ her on purpose and ruining the Lafont name. He lost his temper and told her to shut up. Mama went very quiet and wouldn’t accept his apology. She just went away. When she’s like that you never know what she’s goin’ to do. He went to his room and I went to mine.”
The niggling suspicion in the back of Drake’s mind blossomed into a full-blown certainty. She tore it into strips. A woman’s rage. A female leopard’s rage. Saria’s clothes had been torn into strips. His clothes had been torn into strips. He’d believed the men coming to the inn to drive him from the lair had done it, but ripping up clothes wasn’t a man’s temper tantrum—it was a woman’s.
Not Armande. Iris. Iris Lafont-Mercier. She had taken care to keep the inn from burning down even while she tried to murder them all. She had access to the coffee to put the drug in it. She knew the security code. She worked at the post office where she could hear all gossip, keep an eye on everyone and intercept Saria’s letter. She was a jealous, perverted woman, fit for being the mate of a man like Buford Tregre. The man had spurned her because she couldn’t shift. He’d taken another woman as a mate and taunted Iris with his vicious depravity. She’d married the man whose property neighbored his and taunted him right back with her own brand of depravity.
Iris had despised her daughter and worshipped her son. She’d seduced and killed Charisse’s boyfriends and slaughtered Armande’s girlfriends. She’d even corrupted the family business in the hopes of ruining her daughter by framing her for the opium placed inside the perfumed soaps. Drake had to be certain, but Iris had to have her own secret workplace, close to home, probably close to Charisse’s laboratory so suspicion would remain on Charisse.
Iris had given Leopard