Leopard's Prey

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.”

18
    R EMY 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.”
    Carson wasn’t local. He wouldn’t just be fishing or hunting nutria for his family. He had no reason to be in the swamp. Even if he’d tried to work his way around to the back of the Inn, he’d go in by the lake. This particular spot was a place not far from Bodrie’s camp. Had Carson been going there when the killer ambushed him?
    Drake and Remy’s brothers had known better than to mess up a crime scene and they’d stayed away from the body. Mahieu had stayed behind to guard it and keep any alligators away while Drake and Lojos returned to the Inn to get Remy and Gage. Nothing had been touched, but still, something was off-kilter, just a little wrong.
    He paced around the outer edges of the crime scene, looking at it from all angles. The blood spatter was worse than usual, which meant Carson was alive a very long time, but some of the other victims had also lasted longer than one would expect under the circumstances. The altar was perfect as usual, without one drop of blood other than the pint in the bowl and the heart sitting behind it. The dead man’s left hand was oiled and had a candle tied to it. The rocks were arranged in the familiar rectangle with meticulous care.
    He stood a distance away, frowning, surveying the scene. Gage joined him. Forensics hadn’t arrived yet and the swamp seemed peaceful enough, but as always, living by its own laws. The continual drone was steady, insects buzzing around the body and feasting on what was left.
    “The Rousseau brothers could have done this, Gage. They were in the swamp for certain, and not far from here.”
    “Yep. They could have.” Gage watched his brother’s face. Every expression. Every nuance. The sharp intelligence in his eyes.
    “Carson, though? That doesn’t make sense. He wouldn’t have been in the swamp at night alone, not dressed in his fancy gallery-showing clothes. He had to have been brought here. He’s not a target of opportunity for them.”
    “And they have a lot of others to choose from, people they were really angry with,” Gage agreed. He waited for more. Remy puzzled things out, a master at it, and learning from him would only make him better at his own job.
    Remy kept looking at the body. The altar was perfect. The discarded plastic suit was in the exact position it should have been, but there was