He was the only person between the gunman and escape.

Hugging the backs of the exhibits, Scott moved on the unsuspecting man who now leaned over Monnier -- and Jeannie. Scott had to take him before the man decided to shoot again -- a high-powered bullet could pass through Monnier's body and hit Jeannie. If she was even alive. She had to be alive.

Scott ran lightly, then leapt at the killer. He kept his hit low, his goal to push the man and the gun up and away from the two helpless people on the ground.

Scott didn't see the box until he hit it with his foot. The noise drew the gunman's attention a millisecond before Scott tackled. The killer's face was a mixed bag of hate, anger and shock. Even with the warning, Scott's timing was better than good. He thrust the man's arm up before the weapon went off. Scott's body followed through and knocked the man away from the those on the ground.

Scott now had the upper hand both in size and ability. The gunman fought to escape, not win. His desire to survive to kill another day lent strength to his wiry frame. The ensuing fight had no rules. Scott wouldn't have it any other way.

Peripheral movement from the aisle between the exhibits distracted Scott. A flash of blue, the dull shine of a revolver aimed in their direction caught his eye, then a voice yelled, "Hold it! Put your hands up and move away from each other!"

The police officer's untimely intervention disrupted Scott's rabid concentration, distracting him long enough to give the gunman a chance to slip out of Scott's strong grip. The murdering bastard bolted behind a small storage shed and out through a fire door at the side of the building.

'Dammit all to hell!'

Spinning round, he looked at the cop who'd turned the tide of the battle. "Get him, you fool!" Scott shouted. "He killed a man. He's unarmed."

The cop's blank face lit with understanding. He yelled for back up to cover the outside as he pursued the gunman through the door.

With the forces of the law now after the culprit, Scott turned his attention to the injured.

Monnier was dead. The holes in his chest and forehead told him that.

He rushed to check on Jeannie, who'd uttered no sound since the single scream. She lay motionless under Monnier's body. Fumbling for her pulse, he found it. It was strong.

Tears of relief streamed down his face as he shifted Monnier's dead-weight off her body and proceeded to check for other injuries. Lifting her head with one hand, he probed for lumps with the other. He found one -- about the size of a golf ball. His hand came away with a small amount of blood. Because she hadn't regained consciousness, he had to assume she had, at the very least, a concussion. Only x-rays would tell him if she'd fractured her skull.

Spying a bag of styrofoam peanuts, he used them to cushion her head. Gently he probed her face. A vicious bruise on her jaw told him the bastard had struck her with his gun. It, too, would need to be x-rayed.

A quick examination of the rest of her body showed no other wounds. All the blood was Monnier's, not hers.

'Thank you, God.'

Satisfied she was in no immediate distress, he pulled a loose piece of tarp from a pile a boxes and covered her to keep her warm. Shock was still a potential problem.

He'd done all he could for her until emergency personnel reached them.

Before he turned to Tony, he brushed a kiss on her pale lips and stroked the hair off her brow.

Movement from behind startled him into a defensive posture over Jeannie. Had the killer circled around to finish what he'd started?

"Sir. Step aside please."

Scott looked up. Fire department emergency technicians stood behind him.

Scott's muscles relaxed. He shifted to the side, allowing them access but maintaining contact with Jeannie by placing a hand on her shoulder. While the EMT took vitals, he updated the tech on his preliminary examination.

The tech nodded. "We'll collar her to be on the safe side. If she hit the floor hard enough to raise a contusion that size, she might have some trauma to her neck."

The tech called over his shoulder, "Joe, how's the other guy?"

Scott was ashamed to admit he'd forgotten all about Tony with the arrival of the emergency personnel. Turning his head, he watched as the other EMT examined his friend.

"Steady. Looks to have some contusions, possible concussion -- need to check him out for a fracture. Guy seems to be able to answer all my questions, but the knot on his head is big and bled out big time."

The tech caring for Jeannie nodded. "Okay. We're gonna transport two to Charity. Call it in, would you? I need to get this IV started."

Scott assisted with Jeannie's IV, freeing up the tech to assist the man working on Tony. After Jeannie had been shifted to a rolling gurney, he gently brushed the back of his hand against her pale cheek. Then he went over to check on Tony.

The other EMT and one of the security guards had shifted Tony onto a gurney. He was alert, but his dark skin was tinged with an unhealthy grey.

"How's Jeanette?" Tony winced as the gurney hit a bump, jostling him. "Damn, I ache all over."

"She's fine." Scott heaved a sigh and forced back the sob which threatened to escape. "If it hadn't been for you, she might have been killed."

Tony started to shake his head, but stopped with a groan. "I didn't do all that much. If it hadn't been for the other guy, that Monnier fellow, we'd both be dead. He took one in the chest, then he threw himself between Jeannie and the gunman. I couldn't do nothin', just lay there. Damn, I was useless." Tony reached up and grabbed Scott's arm where it rested on the gurney. "Did he make it?"

"No."

Out of habit, Scott took his friend's pulse and found it to be normal. A cursory examination of Tony's pupils showed them to be equal and responsive to the penlight he'd borrowed from the EMT. If Tony had a concussion, it was a mild one. Thank God his friend's head was hard. He'd be okay.

"I'll ride with you to the hospital. Smooth the way for both of you." Scott turned to see the EMT and a police officer carrying Jeannie to the ambulance. "We'll regroup later."

"Scott." Tony reached out and grabbed Scott's arm. "Did they get the shooter?"

The police officer walking alongside of Jeannie's gurney heard the question. "No. The bastard got away. We've got his gun. Prints all over it. If he has a record, we'll find him."

Scott wasn't about to hold his breath on that point. If the guy was a pro, he would be half way out of the United States before the local cops found a match on the prints. The gun was probably cold.

No, Scott thought, they hadn't seen the last of that guy. He had to kill the people who could identify him, or he'd never be able to move freely in this part of the United States again.

"You know what we have to do, don't you?" Tony asked.

Scott looked down at his buddy and smiled grimly. "We go to ground. You and Jeannie to the back waters of the bayou and me to Brazil. We've got to get him -- or them -- before we're all dead."

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.

"I need to lie low for awhile."

Matthews' feral eyes swept the room for potential danger. He sat in a booth in a dark corner of a bar on Bourbon Street.

Across from him, Rutherford puffed angrily on his cigar. He couldn't believe how badly Matthews had botched a simple assignment. How hard could it be to kill one small woman and a stupid idiot like Monnier? In his day that would've been an initiation rite for the gang in his old neighborhood. He shook his head in disgust and drank his scotch in one gulp.

"Tell me why I shouldn't kill you myself, you fuck-up." Rutherford whispered the words, and smiled when the hired gun blanched, his face whiter than a freshly bleached sheet. At least the man was smart enough to be afraid.

Matthews drank his own form of liquid courage, coughed, then said, "Lopez needs me -- you need me -- to keep the smugglers in line."

"Ah, Eric, so foolish to think we couldn't replace you. There are always others waiting to take your place. Try again."

Rutherford stared at the man through slitted lids. He could see Matthews was having a hard time refuting his logic. As with all predators, Matthews knew there was always another rapacious male waiting in the wings, ready to take over another's turf.

"Dr. Rutherford -- it won't happen again. I'll go back to Brazil. Lie low. How could they find me? And even if they did, Brazil wouldn't extradite me. The police down there are even more corrupt than the New Orleans cops."

Matthews was grasping at straws, and he knew it. Rutherford laughed silently at the man's obvious struggle to find the right excuses.

But he wasn't off the hook, not by a long shot. Sorry to say, Eric would have a little accident on his way back to Brazil. Manuel would just have to understand.

Rutherford smiled. "Sure, go to Brazil, Eric. Report to Manuel. Tell him all, mind you, or I'll have to do it myself. It would be better coming from you, don't you think?"

Matthews nodded his head wildly, sweat streaming down his face in the air-conditioned coolness of the bar. "Yes. Yes. I'll do that. Thank you, doctor. I'll leave tonight." After taking another gulp of his drink, he asked, "What about Monnier's body? Won't the police question you?'

"Why how nice of you to think of the predicament you've left me with, Eric." Rutherford's low reply was tinged with more than a hint of a sneer. "I have it covered -- don't worry about it. Lucky for you I have friends in high as well as low places."

He took a pull on his cigar and blew the smoke at Matthews, who coughed and turned an interesting shade of green.

"Uh, yeah -- lucky for me." Matthews finished his drink in one gulp and signaled for another one, holding up two fingers to indicate a double. "I'll be gone within the hour."

"Wise move." Rutherford smiled -- and he knew it didn't reach his eyes.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

'Two days later.'

The sky over Lake Pontchartrain was dark and threatening. A summer storm had threatened to dump on the people in the small power boat ever since it had left the docks at New Orleans and headed toward Pass Manchac.

In the distance, Jeanette spotted the stark white tower of an abandoned lighthouse rising from the storm-darkened waters and outlined by the blue-black sky. The building once stood on dry land, but was now completely surrounded by water. It marked the opening of the Pass.

Once through the Pass, the boat would enter Lake Maurepas. After that, they would be that much closer to Manchac, a small town on the edge of the swamp after which it was named. It was where Scott and Paul had grown up and where Scott's mother still lived.

Her mood as somber as the storm clouds shrouding the sky, Jeanette sat in the middle of the boat. As if she were two separate people, one part of her observed Tony and Scott entertain Brigitte, the other brooded over the tangled mess their lives had become.

She should be happy to be reunited with her daughter, the child's protective stay at the Retreat House shortened by the new threat to herself and Scott's decree that she and Little Bits hide in the bayou backwaters with his mother. She 'was' happy to be reunited with her daughter. But deep inside, she couldn't avoid the horrifying truth: a man as ruthless as Rutherford would find them sooner or later. And then, not only was she and her daughter in danger, but also the other innocent people who'd vowed to protect them.

It was a Catch-22. She was damned no matter what she did, where she went, and whom she involved. The only way to end the danger was to cut off the head of the beast.

The fact that Scott intended to take the beast head on -- risking his life in the process -- chilled her to the marrow of her bones and only added to the guilt that threatened to bury her.

What had she done? Why was karma biting her in the butt, time and time again? First, Paul's death. Then, Charles's. And now, the danger to her loved ones still among the living.

"Momma." Brigitte's happy and excited little voice broke through her funky state. "Look at the bird!"

Jeanette shifted her vision to where her daughter's finger pointed. An involuntary gasp of sheer delight escaped her.

Near the opening of the Pass, a single ray of light had broken through the angry ceiling of clouds, creating a pathway of light, bisected by a rainbow midway to the surface of the lake. And flying along the ray from the dark sky through the rainbow toward the pewter-colored water was a giant egret.

The cold spot in her soul thawed.

It was as if God had sent her a message. Hope could dawn during even the darkest hour. Just as on this dark and miserable day, there were rainbows and beauty.

"The Manchac Swamp welcomes us home." Scott's calm gaze centered on Jeanette. "Little Bits and you belong to Paul -- and to me. He and I belonged to the swamp. It was in Paul's blood just as it is in mine. The swamp will protect its own, Jeannie. Believe it."

She couldn't speak, she just nodded. For the first time in weeks she felt like smiling -- and she did through the rainbow of her tears.

Scott threw a rope to a teenager at the Manchac docks. As he went through the mechanical tasks of securing the boat, he scanned the crowd for his mother, Clothilde Fontenot, known as Mama Chloe to everyone in the Manchac area. She'd promised to close her gift shop where she sold local, handmade items in order to meet them. He wanted Jeannie and Little Bits to be made welcome from the instant they set foot on his home soil.

"Scott, 'cher'."

There she was. Scott grinned and waved. "Hi ya, Mama."

The older woman called out, "'Comment ca va?'"

"'Ca va bien'." Scott returned the traditional greeting of the bayou.

"Who's that, Uncle Scott?" Little Bits shyly clung to his arm and peeked around him at his mother, who ran to the dock to greet them. Her long skirt tangled in her legs; gray-brown hair escaped from the braids wrapped upon her head like a crown. "She looks happy to see us."

Scott pulled Little Bits round in front and held her as they faced his on-rushing mother. "That's because she's my mama, and she is happy to see us. She knew your daddy when he was little. Practically raised the two of us, since he liked to come to our house all the time."

His mother overheard his last words. "That's 'cause little Paul liked Mama Chloe's cooking, 'cher'."

Not waiting for them to disembark, she stepped into the boat and wrapped her arms around Scott and Little Bits and hugged them until the little girl squealed with laughter. "We're gonna have us a big party tonight with some of that good cooking to welcome y'all. I made my boy's favorite -- andouille gumbo."

Scott smacked his lips loudly while he rubbed his stomach. Little Bits giggled.

"Mama," Scott said. "I want you to meet Brigitte LaFleur and her mother, Jeanette."

Scott turned and found Jeanette standing next to Tony in the middle of the boat. Jeannie laughed along with Little Bits. Scott's heart ached to see her smile and he fell in love all over again. He was going to do everything within his power to rid her of the danger so he could see her smile every day for the rest of his life.

"Nice to meet you, Mama Chloe." Jeanette came forward and got a hug. "Paul told me all sorts of stories about his childhood. And your cooking, especially the andouille gumbo, was a prominent feature in every one of them."

"Well, that boy sure could eat." She laughed. "I swore Paul had a tapeworm he ate so much."

She turned to her son. "You gonna introduce that good lookin' man over there, or am I supposed to guess who he is?"

Scott smiled. "Mama meet Tony Fortier. He served with Paul and me in the marines. He's going to stay with you -- for extra protection until I get back."