Hall, Jessica by Into the Fire

anyone.
    "Isabel Marie Duchesne has been moved to a medical facility
for treatment of a head injury," the captain was saying. "At this
time I have no update on her condition."
    "What was she doing at the warehouse, Captain?" one of
the reporters called out. "Was she involved with Marc LeClare?"
    Pellerin's face reddened. "Ms. Duchesne is a witness in an
ongoing investigation. That's all I can tell you now."
    The balloon-shaped glass fell from her hand unnoticed, shattering
on the hardwood floor. Isabel Marie Duchesne. After all the prayers she
had made, hoping never to hear that name again.
    Elizabet looked up at the shadow box on the wall, which Louie had
built to display what he considered their most precious heirloom—a small square
cassette box in which his family's original matriarch had brought her trousseau
with her from Paris. Elizabet's own family could trace its roots back to Jean
Baptiste Le Moyrte, sieur de Bienville, King Louis XV's builder and founder of New
Orleans. For this reason, she had always considered her husband's pride in his
"casket girl" ancestress to be slightly embarrassing. The girl had
really been no better than a prostitute, selling herself in marriage in
exchange for a pitiful dowry and free passage to America. The same way Isabel
Duchesne had tried to use Jean-Delano to better her situation.
    I won't let her hurt my son again.
    In a panic, Elizabet went
back to the desk and dialed the restaurant again. Her fingers shook so much
that she had to dial it twice. "Philipe? I don't care about the delivery.
Tell my husband to come to the phone at once. Yes, it's an emergency."
     
    Unable to sit down or relax, J. D. went to the windows of the ER
lobby to watch the evening traffic roll by. If Sable had to be admitted, he'd
have to post an armed officer outside her room. Hell, he'd stay and guard her
himself—maybe when she regained consciousness, she'd be more in a mood to talk
to him.
    "Was that your wife you brought in?" a gentle voice
asked.
    J. D. turned to see a middle-aged woman standing next to him. She
had on a faded housedress and looked tired, but her smile was sympathetic. What
she'd asked him finally registered—she thought Sable was his wife.
    Something twisted in his gut. "No, ma'am. She's... a
friend."
    "Well, don't you worry. This here's a good hospital."
She nodded toward the treatment rooms. "My husband's in there now. He
gobbles down two of my po'boys at lunchtime; then he says he's having chest pains."
    Her tone was amused but he could see the worry in her eyes.
"Maybe it's nothing serious."
    "Indigestion, most like. He'll blame it on the peppers and
onions, like always." She laughed at herself. "I keep telling that
man he's got to stop eating so much and so fast, but does he listen to
me?"
    He smiled a little. "Hard for a man to do when his wife's a
good cook."
    "I suppose." She eyed him. "Your girl looked like
she bumped her head real bad—you all get in an accident?"
    "No, ma'am. She fell." He looked back through the
window. "I tried to catch her, but I didn't get there in time." All
he seemed to do was try to catch Sable while she slipped through his fingers.
    A nurse called out a name, and the woman patted his arm.
"That's me. Don't you fret, son. You just take care of her now, and she'll
be fine." She walked over to the nurse, then laughed and accompanied her
back to the treatment rooms.
    J. D.'s attention strayed to a figure in a lab coat and scrubs
talking to an old man outside. It was a woman, but her back was to him. A stray
shaft of light broke through the gathering storm clouds, making her red hair
blaze like dark fire.
    That can't be—
    He swore as he ran for the exit, but the driver of the sedan
blocked his path.
    "Watch where the hell you're going!"
    "Sorry." J. D. paused long enough to steady the old man
before trotting outside.
    Sable was already behind the wheel of the sedan and
backing out. She'd not only faked him out; she was ditching him.
    Over his dead