Spying the VooDoo Exhibit across the way, she placed their exact position. Tugging on Tony's shirt, she said, "We're near the east gate. Scott will be coming in this way. We'll be able to see him arrive."

Stopping mid-nod, Tony stiffened and said over his shoulder, "Hundred feet to the right. Two men by the lemonade stand. Do they look familiar to you?"

Jeanette turned and sought the spot. She gasped. "Walter Monnier! He's the one on the left. Scott told you about him. He works for Rutherford. The other man I've never seen before."

"Shit. I knew this was a bad idea." Tony got out his cell phone, punched a code and waited. "Shit. No time. They're coming!"

"The VooDoo Exhibit. I've been in there before. We can lose them in there." Jeanette dashed around Tony and ran for the Exhibit's entrance.

"Jeanette! Wait. Dammit."

Tony's voice sounded angry -- and behind her. But Jeanette wasn't going to wait in wide open spaces and make it easy for Rutherford's henchmen. She was going to evade, hide and then escape.

Tony caught up with her at the VooDoo entrance. He threw a bill at the ticket-taker, then grabbed her arm and pulled her into the large building. The interior was filled with booths and tented exhibits featuring tarot readers, charms and amulets, VooDoo dolls, fortune-telling, and any other alternative or fringe life-style or belief a person could think of. It had always been Jeanette's favorite part of the Jazz Fest. She just hoped it wouldn't be the last time she ever visited it.

The woman collecting the ticket money yelled after them. "Hey Buddy -- don't you want your change?"

Tony waved the woman off as he kept pulling Jeanette further away from the entrance.

They were fifty feet inside when they heard the woman's voice again, this time yelling, "Stop those men. They didn't pay."

"Where should we go?" Tony whispered as he pulled her along in a running slouch.

"The fortune teller's booth." Jeanette tugged to the left. "This way."

They moved swiftly, without looking back. As they approached the front of the gaudily decorated tent, Jeanette changed directions and pulled Tony into a shop offering VooDoo charms for sale.

"Why...?"

"Shhh. The Fortune Teller's booth was the obvious goal on that path, but this place has a back way out."

Tony grinned and gave her a thumb's up.

Jeanette chanced a glance out the curtained front door of the little shop. Monnier and his ugly friend headed straight for the Fortune Teller's Booth. There, they stopped and questioned the girl at the entrance. When she shook her head, the two angry-looking men glanced around them.

She knew the instant they decided on the VooDoo charm shop.

"Come on, time to move," Jeanette whispered to Tony, shoving him toward the back of the shop. Along the way she picked up a couple of packages of some powders. Then she said, "Give the gal some money, darling, and come on. We don't want my ex to catch up with us."

Tony smiled at her quick thinking and threw another twenty at the dark-skinned girl who asked no questions. Her Caribbean-accented voice called after them, "Have a nice day -- those mens will no follow you."

Jeanette heard the snick of the lock and the sound of something large being shoved against the door after they left. She smiled.

After they left the shop, they edged their way around the small building back toward the back of the next booth, a candle shop.

"Let's just skirt along the back of the booths until we get back to the front entrance," Tony said as he placed his body between her and whatever might follow them. "Scott should be here by now. He'll be looking for us outside, near the front of this exhibit."

Scott and safety. It felt right. She'd never bemoan her cushioned prison again -- if they got out of this, that is.

Behind them, an altercation erupted.

The sales clerk in the charm shop screamed at the top of her lungs, "Stop thieves! Police!" Her cry was soon taken up by the other booth holders.

Jeanette laughed. They just might make it.

The main entrance to the VooDoo exhibit building was only thirty feet away when Walter Monnier stepped out from the side of a building and blocked their path.

His lurid grin made Jeanette want to vomit. Behind her, an almost inhuman growl became a gasp of pain. Turning she saw Tony fall. Her escape had been cut off, and she couldn't leave Tony.

Monnier's evil sidekick had hit Tony over the head with a large box. He now stalked her.

Jeanette placed her back against a booth in an attempt to keep both men within her field of vision.

"Flower. Give up, sweetness." Closing in slowly, Monnier spoke in low tones, his words dripping with slime. "Don't make a scene -- or we may have to shoot the so-very-brave man lying on the ground."

"Y'all are gonna kill him -- and me anyway. We've both seen you. And Rutherford wants this to look like another accident. So I'm not budging, and I'm not making it easy."

Jeanette hugged the booth wall with her back, wishing she could meld into it and escape out the other side. Since that was a physical impossibility, she settled for glaring at Monnier. Her heart raced at a hundred miles an hour and she was afraid she wouldn't be able to catch her next breath, but she managed a small chuckle at the look of consternation which settled on her adversary's face.

"Ya think you're smart, don't ya?" Monnier sneered.

"Uh huh."

'Come on, Scott. Come in and find us. We need you.'

"Do something, Monnier!" The ugly sidekick turned and kicked Tony's unconscious body. "That black bitch from the booth will have everyone in the place looking for us. We can't stay here -- and we can't leave them alive to talk."

Jeanette was puzzled. Monnier had grimaced at the snarled order from his ersatz partner. Was there trouble brewing in hell?

"Yeah, Walter." She decided to stir the pot. "What ya gonna do? Can you really kill me? After all, I've done nothing to you. Are you gonna murder me in

cold blood? That's the death penalty in this state. And they will get you. There are too many witnesses now. The clerks in this exhibit have all seen you."

Jeanette swept both men with a knowing glance. "Both of you."

In the main part of the exhibit, the noise of frightened people was now

overlaid with a police presence.

"Find them."

"Spread out."

"Look in and around every booth."

"Clear these people out of here -- and check them."

At the sound of law enforcement, Monnier's sidekick spat a vulgarity, then

pulled his gun. He pointed it down at Tony.

Jeanette screamed, "No!" She looked for a weapon, anything, to throw off the man's arm.

Then she remembered.

She pulled one of the bags of powder she'd bought from her pocket and

threw it at the man's face. He instinctively raised his arms to ward off the

object.

As he coughed from the irritating potion dust, she flung herself at the man, pushing his arm up as he fired the gun blindly in her direction.

"Flower, no!" Monnier's voice sounded afraid -- for her. "He'll kill you."

A hand shoved her out of the way. The bullet whizzed by her face so closely

she could smell the heat. Behind her she heard a gasp of pain, but she was too busy struggling with the gunman to see whom he'd shot.

She screamed once more, hoping help would soon come. She didn't know

how long she could hold him off. The man was strong -- and trained. All she had going for her was that she was pissed and fighting for her and Tony's lives.

And, for a few short moments, sheer guts and strength of will had taken the

upper hand.

But within mere seconds, the struggle turned in the gunman's favor. He back-handed her across the face with the butt of the gun, knocking her to the

ground next to Tony.

"Good-bye, bitch."

Jeanette closed her eyes, too exhausted and stunned to move. She said a prayer, then wept for her daughter, for Scott, for...

A roar erupted over her head.

"You fucking, back-stabbing bastard!" Walter shouted.

Jeanette opened her eyes to see him throw himself between her and the gunman.

She heard a loud discharge -- then there was darkness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.

At the sound of screams coming from the direction of the VooDoo Exhibit, Scott left the men who'd accompanied him and tore off toward the building. At the entrance, pandemonium reigned. He shoved and twisted his way through the mass of frightened and crazed people who tried to exit the building. A frazzled police officer attempted to stem the exodus. At Scott's upstream intrusion, the man threw him a questioning glance, but waved him on when he saw the hospital garb.

Once inside, the scene wasn't any better. Anarchy reigned. Police and private security guards milled around the center of the main aisle. They shouted contradictory orders, while booth owners yelled at the law officers to do something.

Scott grimaced -- the heck with them. He barreled his way up the main path, listening for anything that would indicate to him where Jeannie and Tony might be.

As he approached the middle of the building, the sound of a single screamed "no" was heard above the racket in the exhibit. The cry was immediately followed by the sound of a gun.

The single shot tore through his soul.

Shoving horrible images aside, he strained to hear above the clamor in the building. He sensed the sound had come from behind and on his right. Going with his gut feelings, he cut between two tented exhibits, then turned to run toward the front of the building when a second scream occurred.

Enraged, Scott raced toward the sounds of a fight.

Then he was upon them.

Tony on the ground -- unmoving. His Jeannie struggled with a man who had a gun. The man knocked Jeannie to the ground and pointed the gun at her. He was going to kill her! And Scott wasn't close enough to stop him.

He dug down for more speed, but he wouldn't make it. Even love can't outrun a bullet.

With a loud roar, another man leapt between Jeannie and the gunman. It was Walter Monnier! The gun fired once more. Monnier fell, covering Jeannie's body with his.

The killer looked around. He hadn't noticed Scott -- yet. And Scott couldn't wait for the law to figure out what was going on. The keystone cops and private muscle were still trying to decide what had caused the commotion. Jeannie's screams and the gun shots had been lost in the hubbub.