“Other than you have to run drugs for them,” Drake said.onet>

Beau didn’t reply.

“What are you goin’ to do with us?” Gilbert asked.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Drake said. “For now, go home and keep your mouths shut. If you get another call, you’d better let us know immediately. And then take Evangeline to the Boudreaux home. You understand me? Don’t make me come looking for you.”

Remy bent down and unlocked the cuffs on both men. “You were damned stupid to get into this mess,” he repeated. “And you’re lucky Drake is leader.”

“Oh, they’ll be punished,” Drake said. “I have to give it some thought.”

“Tell the boy . . .” At Drake’s scowl, Beau cleared his throat, “Renard’s son, we’d still like to talk with him. If he’d like.”

“I’ll tell him.” Drake pinned him with his predator’s stare. “Don’t make the mistake of running away or going to the Merciers. I’d hunt you down and I’d never stop until I found you and I killed you. You don’t want me for an enemy.”

Beau nodded. “This is my home. I was born here and I’ll die here. I got nowhere else to go. Gilbert’s the same. And we’ve got Evangeline and the boys to see to. We’re not goin’ to be lookin’ over our shoulders the rest of our lives.”

Drake watched the two men walk heavily toward the boat before he turned to Remy. “We didn’t get much on our killer.”

“Drugs? You didn’t think maybe that might be important to tell me?” Remy demanded.

“Sorry. We were going to talk to you first thing after we rested. Someone drugged us and tried to kill us all with smoke. I have to talk to Pauline. She set the security alarm and someone turned it off and disabled the smoke alarms. They blocked all the balcony doors from the outside.”

“And you think it was the killer?”

“It has to be someone familiar with the inn’s security system. The Merciers were here and all of them heard Pauline say she was leaving for the day. Any of them could have done it.”

“Charisse or Armande. Damn it all, Drake, it always comes back to them. Mahieu is taken with that girl.”

“So is Saria.” Drake shook his head. “But she’s got the brains, knows chemistry and certainly is always around when something goes wrong.”

“Just damn it,” Remy said.

Chapter 18

18

“HURRY, Drake, hurry,” Saria chanted in a whisper. She repeated his name over and over, a mantra to save her.

The bathroom was quite small, much smaller than her room, but it was at the farthest point of the house away from the sitting room where Elijah and Joshua and her brothers were gathered. She bit down hard on her thumbnail as she paced the few feet across the tiled floor.