Behind him and just in the corner of his vision, the spotted leopard had hit Juste from the side with the same ferocious and calculated intensity as the black leopard had Jean. He held Juste in the same suffocating bite. Jean had his head turned toward Juste, but already the light faded from his eyes.

The two leopards held their prey in unbreakable grips, waiting for the life force to leave the bodies. The moment the brothers were dead, the humans took back control, forcing their cats away from their prey. As they did, Lojos and Drake broke through the brush in human form. Both of them carried weapons.

Remy shifted, catching the pair of jeans Drake tossed him. Gage shifted and pulled on a pair of jeans his brother Lojos provided.

“We have to get rid of the bodies quickly, before anyone comes along,” Remy said. “Take them to that monster of an alligator’s hole. No one ever disturbs him and he’ll hide the evidence of leopard’s bites better than anything else. Break the gun down and toss it in his hole as well. If we’re very lucky, no one in our lifetime will find it.”

“Consider it done,” Lojos said. “We’ll take care of it.”

“We didn’t find the brothers, obviously,” Drake added. “But we did find another body.” He paused with a small sigh. “Unfortunately, both you and Bijou know him.”

Chapter 18

18

REMY crouched down as close as he could to the bloody mess that was Bob Carson and looked him over carefully, pushing aside the fact that the body, stripped of life and dignity, so brutally tortured, had once been a man. He was nothing more than a carcass hung in the tree, like a deer carved for its meat. Only Carson had been carved for his bones.

Remy didn’t like the man. Carson had stalked Bijou for years—had probably entertained the idea of getting rid of her when she was an eight-year-old child so that he had a chance of inheriting Bodrie Breaux’s fortune. He’d tormented Bijou by keeping her in the tabloids, by feeding them so many misleading stories and headlines to photographs he manipulated into the worst possible lies in order to get money—and embarrass her.

Still, no one should die like this. Hard. Mean. Screaming for mercy with no one but alligators to hear. Carson had been at the gallery a few hours earlier and Remy had helped to throw him out.

“He always has his camera with him,” Remy said. “Find it. And where’s his car? How did he get out here? I can’t see him walking out here by himself at night in those dress shoes he’s still wearing. He didn’t change his suit either, so he didn’t go back to his hotel and change before he was killed.”