Perfect killer

CHAPTER 54

Loud, muffled thuds ripped apart the seams of my solid, dreamless sleep. The thuds came again, louder, faster. Then, a man's voice: "Jasmine!"

I jerked awake then. Hazy light frosted the windows and filled the room with soft quilted colors. Then a key rattled the front dead bolt.

I sat up. Jasmine's exquisitely black hair and the red hues of her brown sugar skin connected with the deepest parts of my heart. Then I remembered my faint dream and realized it had been more than illusion. I wanted to wonder more about this when the front door slammed opened and a man's voice boomed in from the front room.

"Jasmine?"

Her eyelids snapped open wide, revealing bright wisteria eyes that distilled the sunshine and threw it back, deeper and more intense.

"Girl? You here?"

Footsteps thudded closer; old boards creaked.

I sat up and realized I was naked except for my briefs. I stretched over and fumbled around on the floor before locating the Ruger.

"No," Jasmine said as she touched my shoulder. I stopped with my hand still outstretched, fingers curling around the butt of the pistol. I turned my head toward Jasmine and saw she was dressed in an oversize, gray Valley State T-shirt that came dawn to midthigh. From there down it was all beautiful skin.

"It's okay." She sat up.

I didn't move my hand until she said, "In here, Uncle Quincy."

The door opened. As I sat up in the bed, a man of average height and build with light mocha skin, an embroidered dashiki-style shirt, and matching brimless hat walked in. His facial structure reminded me more of Vanessa and less of Jasmine. His eyes were a pale blue and his face touched a memory I could only feel and not remember.

I had seen this man once before in my life. In Jackson, at the Christmas party that had been the end of a beginning that had not really started for Vanessa and me. Quincy Thompson was Al Thompson's son, Vanessa's brother, Jasmine's uncle.

He looked at Jasmine, then me. His eyes did this three or four times, and with each iteration Quincy's face twisted itself deeper into a mask of rage that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

"You gonna be the white man's whore, just like your mama?" he raged at Jasmine. "She always talking black and sleeping white like a brother ain't good enough for the likes of her!"

"Uncle Quincy-"

"Don't uncle me, girl! Don't you have any pride in your race? Any loyalty? You so damned ashamed of being black you want to have a light-skinned baby?"

"You're off base, Uncle Quincy." Jasmine's tone was low, even, and forceful. She got quickly out of bed and stood face-to-face with Quincy Thompson. She was taller by an inch or two even in her bare feet. She had the strong legs of an ice-skater and well-defined muscles that rippled as she moved.

"You made Mama's life miserable carrying on and I am not going to let you do the same thing to me." Her voice was calm and full of steel and made me pray I would never have to face off against her in court or anywhere else.

"Honey, be true to your race," Quincy said.

"I will be true to myself," Jasmine said, "and not to some prehistoric notion that all black women are the exclusive property of black men."

"You've got a sassy mouth, girl. But it's not going to save you from that white man's jungle fever."

Quincy threw me a white-hot, fastball glare burning with hate. The pitch came high and inside, identical to the one LAPD detective Darius Jones had thrown. Anger rose in my chest, but anything I'd say would only fuel his rage.

"My life is my own, Uncle Quincy." Jasmine's cool voice diluted my anger and helped me understand they had been through this conversation before. "I will not allow black men to own me any more than I will allow white men to tell me what to do. I will not trade one form of oppression for another."

Quincy Thompson opened his mouth, then shut it quickly when nothing came out. He stared at Jasmine for several long moments. "You're making a big, big mistake letting some white plantation boy come down from the big house and get into your pants," Quincy said. Then he whirled on his heel and headed toward the door. He stopped and fished in his pants pocket and pulled out a bright pink slip of paper.

He paused, and for a long moment all I heard was the man's labored breathing. "Well, this is why I came." He turned, tossed the paper. Then he stomped out of the house, slamming the door so hard it rattled the windows.

Jasmine and I studiously avoided making eye contact as the paper fluttered to the floor. It landed face up, obviously a telephone message. A car started up outside and sprayed gravel in its haste to leave.*****

With the M21 and a Leupold sight for daytime work slung over her shoulder, Jael St. Clair made her way through the underbrush parallel to the road, steadying her gait with a collapsible aluminum walking staff.

She stopped to take a deep breath and cursed silently when she exhaled. She should have driven the new Toyota SUV rental farther along the narrow, rutted lane, but she worried the 4Runner wouldn't be able to handle the terrain.

She looked back, but through the dense fog could barely make out anything more than fifty yards away. Sometimes less. The 100 percent humidity combined with the cold front that had followed the tornadoes and thunderstorms across the Delta the night before had combined to produce pea soup so thick on the highway she couldn't see more than a car length or two in many places. Highway 82 had been littered with accidents. Fortunately Quincy Thompson had driven like her grandmother.

Jael cursed the fog. She'd have to get closer to her targets than she preferred. No matter. The mission had to be completed. She pushed on through the brush, grateful the fog thinned some as the woods grew denser.

Her lungs burned again from the cigarettes, and her head spun bright from a lack of sleep. But the new patch was doing its job. And doubling up on the pills had rounded off most of the jagged edges of her anger and brought the usual rock-steadiness back to her hands, her eyes, and her thoughts. The old doctor who worked for the General had been adjusting her dosage continuously over the past six months and told her that was a natural thing and not to worry about it. She'd have to tell him she needed another adjustment.

Jael made her way across the soggy ground thatched with knee-high grasses and saplings, perfect cover for quail and copperheads. She'd already flushed one covey, but snakes didn't concern her. A symphony of birdsongs, mockingbirds, the screeches of jays, filled the morning. Then the sound of Quincy Thompson's car growing louder again, coming from the cabin area.

She knelt low in the bushes and unslung the M21, flipped open the Leupold's covers, and sighted in. Through the hazy shroud of fog, she made out an angry black face. She tracked the face as it drew abreast, then headed off in the distance.

"Bang," she said softly as she closed the sight covers and reslung the M21. She stopped for a moment and concentrated her mind on hearing. She'd heard faint rustles since leaving her SUV. But it lacked any sort of pattern connected to danger. The woods here were filled with birds, deer, possums, raccoons, and every other manner of woodland creature. That's what she heard now as she filtered through the chatter of the trees and brush. Finally, she opened her eyes and continued on through the woods toward the plot of land and dwelling that had turned up on her Internet search for Quincy Thompson.