Not Armande. Iris. Iris Lafont-Mercier. She had taken care to keep the inn from burning down even while she tried to murder them all. She had access to the coffee to put the drug in it. She knew the security code. She worked at the post office where she could hear all gossip, keep an eye on everyone and intercept Saria’s letter. She was a jealous, perverted woman, fit for being the mate of a man like Buford Tregre. The man had spurned her because she couldn’t shift. He’d taken another woman as a mate and taunted Iris with his vicious depravity. She’d married the man whose property neighbored his and taunted him right back with her own brand of depravity.

Iris had despised her daughter and worshipped her son. She’d seduced and killed Charisse’s boyfriends and slaughtered Armande’s girlfriends. She’d even corrupted the family business in the hopes of ruining her daughter by framing her for the opium placed inside the perfumed soaps. Drake had to be certain, but Iris had to have her own secret workplace, close to home, probably close to Charisse’s laboratory so suspicion would remain on Charisse.

Iris had given Leopard’s Lover to her sister, one of her only real mistakes. She’d been the one to spread the seeds through Fenton’s Marsh when she killed Charisse’s boyfriends and along the strip between Mercier and Tregre land when she went to meet Buford, which, if he was right and they were mates, would have been often.

Saria made a small sound in the back of her throat. Her face was so white it was nearly gray. That was his woman. Smart. Quick on the uptake. She’d come to the same conclusion as he had.

“Mahieu,” she whispered.

Remy shook his head. “Don’t worry about him, cher, he’s leopard. None of these people ever saw it comin’ and had no chance.”

“We need to go the Mercier house so we can be certain,” Drake cautioned. “The team’s at the Marsh, baby. If there her ow sign of someone murdered, they would have found it by now. And Mahieu would never meet her alone in the marsh. You know he’s smarter than that.”

“Charisse, we need your permission to search your house and the grounds,” Remy said.

Charisse looked up with tear-drenched eyes, glanced at Saria and then nodded.

20

BEHIND the magnificent mansion that had been built as an obvious showpiece, the

crumbling remains of a longforgotten plantation home lay partially buried by the creeping vines and heavy brush of the swamp. Charisse’s laboratory had been constructed in part of the foundation of the original plantation house. Most of the earlier structure was crumbling and eaten away by worms or rotted by the dirt and vines of the swamp as it reclaimed its land.

Charisse used sections of the older house to connect between the greenhouse and her laboratory. Their contractor had preserved one long room to serve as a hall between the two new buildings. Not only did the long room keep the rain off, but it gave Charisse a large storage area for the equipment both for her laboratory and greenhouse.

Drake led the way through the laboratory to the storage room, heading toward the greenhouse. Obviously the killer had spent time in the greenhouse and it was possible they could find something to lead them to wherever the opium was being placed in the soaps that had been manufactured in town.

“Wait,” Charisse whispered as they moved through the darkened storage room. The early morning light couldn’t penetrate the layers of dirt and grime on the windows. She stepped out of the line and placed her hand on the wall. “Can you smell that? Blood. I can smell blood. It’s faint but it’s this way.”

“That’s a wall, Charisse,” Remy felt compelled to point out.

She shook her head. “I used to play in there when I was a child. It’s a hidden passage that was for the servants long ago when this area was a plantation. There’s a narrow hallway that leads downstairs to a rambling, condemned series of rooms that had been used at one time to house slaves. I haven’t been down there for years, but I can smell the blood. I’m certain, Drake.”

A chill went down Drake’s spine. His leopard was close to the surface, yet he hadn’t scented the blood. There was no doubt in his mind that if Charisse said she smelled it—that she did—unless . . . He didn’t want to think he was wrong about her and she was leading them all into a trap. He glanced back at Remy and nodded with his head, silently telling the man to bring up the rear—to keep his eye on Charisse.

“You do know Iris Lafont-Mercier can’t possibly be the killer, right?” Remy whispered as they waited for Charisse to locate the hidden door in the wall. He drew his gun. “She can’t shift. The killer is a shifter. You just pointed the finger at Mama to get Charisse to allow us to search her property right?”

Drake glanced at him over his shoulder. “I’m leader of the lair, not the police, Remy. I don’t require or want permission to search anywhere in the lair. I’d just do it.”

There was a bite to his voice he couldn’t help. Remy should have taken at him ovadership of the lair, but instead, Drake was stuck with it and Drake didn’t shirk his duty. He’d taken on the responsibility and that meant cleaning it up. He had no doubt he was after a very clever killer and right now, his radar was shrieking at him that he was leading Saria right into a trap. Iris didn’t need to shift all the way to be the killer. A partial shifting was unusual but certainly happened when bloodlines weakened.

Charisse found the mechanism for opening the door. Drake waved her back and stepped into the darkened, dirty hallway. The scent of blood was stronger here, wafting up from below. He could smell a mixture of fragrances and an elusive scent his leopard cringed away from.