Praise for the novels of
STELLA CAMERON

“Outstanding! I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. I wish I had written this wonderful book.”

—Fern Michaels on Kiss Them Goodbye

“If you haven’t read Stella Cameron, you haven’t read romantic suspense.”

—Elizabeth Lowell

“Stella Cameron is sensational!”

—Jayne Ann Krentz

Kiss Them Goodbye
Stella Cameron

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For the Seventy-Niners plus two,

adventurers all.

We were three.

We took our names for their meanings.

Guido, the leader.

Ulisse, the hater.

Brizio, the craftsman.

We were young and wild. We killed cheap. A trio of urban mercenaries.

A game? Yes. A game of hide, seek and destroy. It eased the boredom while we waited for a purpose and no one ever knew; no one ever found out.

Until Ulisse betrayed Brizio and Guido broke the pact. Guido found a conscience and confessed to another.

Guido died a perfect death: slow agony, a traitor’s reward.

Ulisse, ah Ulisse. He still plays the game of hide-and-seek, but waits patiently to destroy again, to avenge.

I am Brizio the craftsman. My skill is sublime, the results perfect. I open like a surgeon, swift and sure, but I never close the wound.

See them bleed.

I might stop, but I am forced by Guido’s confessor to continue. This so-called man of honor blackmails me to kill for him.

For now I enjoy playing his game.

Excitement swells, beats beneath my skin. My beautiful knife is ready to cut again. Already I see the fear, the blood, hear the pleading, smell the fecund odors of terror.

Kiss them goodbye.

Chapter 1

The first day

Hay-ell. Saved by the bell, or the egg he guessed he should say, the golden egg. That big and unexpected dude had gotten itself laid in the nick of time, and right at the feet of Louis Martin, Attorney At Law, of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Driving to Iberia, just about through Iberia until the parish all but ran out and melted into St. Martin Parish, wasn’t Louis’s idea of a good time, but he wanted to make this trip. He had good reasons, the best of reasons.

There’d been a fire in the Patins’ famous New Orleans restaurant and David Patin—owner and the glue that held the business together—had died. Nobody guessed David had hidden huge losses and brought the business so low it would have to be sold. Except for Louis, who had known all about it.

Louis rolled the driver’s window of his powder-blue Jag down a crack to let in a sideswipe of warm September afternoon air scented by the eucalyptus trees that arched over the roadway. To his left, Bayou Teche made its sluggish, slime-slicked way past banks where bleached cedars dripped Spanish moss.

An okay place to visit, he guessed, but he belonged in the city and the minute he’d given David Patin’s widow, Charlotte, and their daughter Vivian the good news, he’d be heading east once more. East and New Orleans before nightfall. He would lock himself away with his memories and dreams. There would be even more to think about.

His destination was Rosebank, the house David had inherited from his older brother, Guy, not more than a couple of weeks before his own death. Guy had planned to leave the property to a preservation society but changed his mind on his deathbed, possibly because he knew about his brother’s financial mess and wanted to help.

Louis slowed to a crawl to drive through a village bleached and dried by sun and etched with moss. Aptly named, Stayed Behind had died but no one had thought to bury it yet.

A general store with wide slat siding weathered to the color of bones, a scatter of single-storied houses, brown, gray, green, on blocks, their porches decorated with refrigerators, swings and dogs, and not a soul in sight. Louis itched to slap his foot down on the gas but figured that somewhere there were eyes watching and hoping he’d do just that. He surely didn’t see any way for the folks around here to bring in a little revenue other than from speeding tickets.

Honeysuckle or jasmine—he’d never been too good at recognizing flowers—or some such cloying scent made him think of hot honey dropped from a spoon. Sweet, golden and sticky.

He took a bite from the hamburger balanced on the passenger seat beside his briefcase and chased it with a clump of french fries.

In what felt like seconds, Stayed Behind receded in his rearview mirror. There wouldn’t be another settlement before he got where he was going. Occasionally he caught glimpses of fine old plantation houses set back from the road and surrounded by mature gardens. Trees shaded most of them and if you looked quick enough, each facade might have been a black-and-white photo missing only the stair-step lineup of parents and children dressed in white and posing out front.

The next perfumed attack was easy to recognize, roses, banks of white roses intended to be clipped into an undulating hedge but shaggy today. Louis slowed a little and leaned to peer over the wheel. The gold signet ring on his left pinky finger felt tight and he twisted it through a groove made by swelling. The heat made his head ache.

Rosebank. Guy Patin’s shabby pride and joy sat on a deep five acres surrounded by hedges like this one. Charlotte and Vivian had told him they intended to make the place pay. Something about a hotel. He didn’t remember the details exactly because he had other things on his mind, like how he’d make sure Charlotte remained his client. After all, he couldn’t see how two women alone would turn a rambling old house into anything, particularly when they had no money to speak of. Although Charlotte had agreed to the first loan he’d arranged, she wouldn’t hear of taking another and the money was running out.

But Guy’s treasure hunt had come to light exactly as the man had planned and the little ladies should have no financial difficulties once they secured their windfall. They’d have to find it—darn Guy’s perverse fascination with intrigue—but he had promised that the sealed instructions now in Louis’s briefcase would require only clear minds and perseverance to follow. The envelope, with a cover letter to Louis, had arrived from Guy’s lawyer two days previous. Apparently these would never have been revealed unless there was danger of Rosebank passing out of Patin hands. The lawyer had been left instructions to decide if this was ever the case and apparently took his duties seriously.

White stone pillars topped with pineapple-shaped finials flanked the broad entrance. Louis swung past an ancient maroon station wagon, a Chevy, and onto the paved drive. He braced his arms against the steering wheel to ease his cramped back. The quack said Louis needed to lose God knew how much weight. Garbage. He might be softer than he used to be because he was too busy to work out, but it wouldn’t take so much to tighten up those muscles.

Beneath the avenue of live oaks that framed the driveway, a tall figure walked toward him on the verge. He wore all black except for the white clerical collar visible at the throat of his short-sleeved shirt. Louis felt a pang of irritation at the man’s cool appearance. Then he remembered. The handsome face, dark curly hair and broad shoulders belonged to Father Cyrus Payne of St. Cécil’s Parish in Toussaint, a town just over the line between Iberia and St. Martin parishes. He’d been visiting Charlotte and Vivian the last time Louis came down.

Money-grubbing man of God. Probably fishing around for fat contributions. Well, Louis would find an opportunity to make sure the ladies didn’t waste money, or anything else, in that direction. It was his responsibility to guide them now.

Father Cyrus waved and smiled and Louis grudgingly stopped the Jag. He rolled down his window again. “Afternoon, Father.” Curtness would be wasted on this heartthrob ray of sunshine. Louis bet that those clear and holy blue-green eyes only had to look sincerely at all the sex-starved wealthy widows, or bored wives—and their daughters—around these parts to make sure he got plenty. Louis didn’t believe abstinence was possible.

“Good afternoon,” the priest said, ducking to look at Louis. “Mr. Martin, isn’t it? Louis Martin?”

Louis made an affable, affirmative sound.

“Well, welcome,” Payne said. “Charlotte and Vivian will be pleased to see you. They mentioned you were coming.”

The guy was too buddy-buddy with the Patin women who were both good-looking. He checked his watch. “That’s right. I’d better get along or they’ll be wonderin’ where I am. Afternoon to you, Father.”

“And to you.” The priest nodded and straightened his long, muscular body before setting off for the road.

Louis eased the car onward, but watched the man in the wing mirror, disliking every easy swing of those big, wide shoulders. Oh, yes, he’d surely have a word with Charlotte and Vivian. He drove around a bend and lost sight of Cyrus Payne.

DETOUR.

What the fuck? Sweat stuck his shirt to the soft leather seat. He closed the window and turned up the air-conditioning.

A homemade detour sign, nailed to a stake and stuck into the soil beneath a large potted laurel bush pointed in the direction of a side road through thick vegetation. The holy man could have warned him.

Crawling the car between brambles he was convinced would scratch his shiny new blue paint, Louis squinted through the windshield and sucked air through his teeth at the sound of scraping branches.

He stuck to the narrow, overgrown track, jogging right, then left, and right again.

DEAD END.

“Freakin’ crazy.” He stomped on the brakes. This wasn’t helping him get back to New Orleans before dark and he didn’t see so well at night.

Knuckles rapping glass, close to his head, startled Louis. He swallowed the bile that rushed to his throat, turned, and stared at the masked face of a man who hooked a thumb over his shoulder and indicated he wanted to speak to Louis.

Sucking in air through his mouth, Louis threw the car into reverse only to back into something. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw a tall shrub falling, a tall potted shrub that hadn’t been there seconds ago.

The man hammered on the window and gestured for Louis to stop.

Louis put the car in Park and rolled the window down an inch.

“Allergies,” the man shouted, pointing to his covered head. “This thing works best for keeping stuff out. Damned hot though.”

Reluctantly, Louis lowered the window all the way. He felt sick.

The man pushed his head abruptly inside the car. Alarmed, Louis drew as far away as possible.

“You lost?” the man said, repeatedly scratching his face through the dark mask. “You—”

“Dead end.” Louis pointed to the freshly painted board and added, “Wouldn’t you say that’s a redundancy? I’m not lost, just pissed. I’m a busy man. I don’t have time for paper chases. I’ll just get that thing back there out of the way and turn around.”

“No need for that,” the man said and opened Louis’s door. He placed himself with the door at his back so Louis couldn’t attempt to close it. “Just follow my directions and you’ll get where you’re supposed to go.”

The voice was expressionless, serene even, and with the power to raise hair on the back of the neck. “I’ll do just fine,” Louis said. He screwed up the courage to say, “Can I give you a lift?” even as he prayed the fellow would refuse.

He did.

“I’m goin’ to be your guide, Mr. Martin.”

Louis shivered. “How do you know who I am?” Instinct suggested he should hit the gas and shoot backward out of there, no matter what he had to drive over, only he could likely kill this menacing nuisance. It might be hard to convince a judge that a person with no visible means of making trouble, had scared the shit out of Louis who then acted in self-defense.

“Pass me the briefcase.”

Louis’s throat dried out and he coughed. He moved his right hand to put the car in reverse.

“You don’t want to do that again. Turn the car off. Give me the briefcase and I’ll let you go.”

Louis didn’t believe him and his hand continued to hover over the gearshift. The inside of his head hammered.

The man reeked of rancid sweat and when he pressed even closer, Louis turned his head away.

What had to be a gun jabbed into his ribs and the sharp point of a knife, pressed gently against the side of his neck, ensured that Louis didn’t make any more moves. “Turn off the ignition.”

Louis did so.

“Good. Now the briefcase. Slowly. Keep your left hand on the wheel and pass over the case.”

That was when Louis saw that the man wore tight-fitting gloves.

“No. I’ve changed my mind. Put it on your lap and open it.”

Louis did as he was told. He shifted slightly and felt the blade open a nick in his skin. A trickle of warm, silky blood drizzled from the wound.

“Open it,” the man repeated in his soft voice. “Thank you. I want the envelope. You know the one.”

Oh, my God, I’m going to die. Louis’s hands shook as he opened the case wider. The Patin file and the envelope in question were all it contained.

“Good. Really good. Remove the envelope, then close the briefcase and put it back on the seat. Good. Now throw the envelope out of the car, backward, away from the door.”

Louis made himself chuckle. “I was bringing these to you all the time. Yes, indeedy, these would have had your name on them if I’d known it. You’re going to do what I should have thought of—find a fortune for yourself. The Patin women don’t know a thing about it, y’know. I was supposed to tell them today. I can be a friend to you. I can make it easier to get what you want.”

“Throw it out, please.”

“We need to study the map in there. Honestly, I’ve wanted to do this, to take what they don’t know they’ve got coming. You may not find it on your own, but with me it’s a cinch. I’ll—”

“You’re making this more difficult. I’d be so grateful if you’d do as I ask. Then we’ll discuss your kind offer.”

Hopelessness weighted Louis’s limbs. The freak’s painful deference only increased the menace. Louis tossed the envelope on the ground and the man kicked it away. “Now,” he said, returning his whole attention to Louis. “Why don’t you tell me all about how you can make my job easier?”

“There’s treasure. It’s hidden at Rosebank.”

Slipping the knife from his right to his left hand, the man settled it against the other side of Louis’s neck, the right side. “I’m sorry, but it’s news I want and you don’t have any, do you?”

There hadn’t been a gun. The guy had faked it just to make doubly sure Louis didn’t try too hard to escape.

“It’s not easy to think straight like this,” Louis babbled. “But I do know things you couldn’t know. Give me a chance to look at the map with you. Get in the car and we’ll go over things. Charlotte and Vivian know me. They trust me.”

“Stupid of them but never mind. They’ll have me and they already trust me.”

“But—”

There wasn’t a lot of pain. The knife blade sliced deep into his neck, just the right side of his neck, and he flopped slowly sideways. Thunderous pulsing roared in his ears and he saw red, red everywhere. His blood pumped from the carotid artery in gushes. It hit the windshield and splattered over the lovely ivory leather interior of the car.

Red and black. Bleeding to death. Life draining out.

Louis opened his mouth but couldn’t speak.

He slid until his head rested on the briefcase.

“I’m only doing my job,” a distant voice said. “Brizio always does his job.”

Louis convulsed. His mouth filled with blood. No pain at all now, just soft, gray numbness gathering him in.

“Sleep tight. This is your dead end, sucker.”

Chapter 2

“Vivian Patin, I’m your mother. You have absolutely no right to speak to me in that manner.”

Charlotte paused to peer down the passageway leading from the big, antiquated kitchens to the hall and the receiving room where their next-door neighbor, Mrs. Susan Hurst, waited for tea. After taking no notice of Charlotte and Vivian since they moved in months earlier, she had appeared on the doorstep today, just appeared without warning and invited herself for tea. Imagine that. With a plate of cookies in hand, she’d showed up to be “neighborly.”

“Mama,” Vivian said in a low voice but without whispering. “I’m a little old to be treated like a child. Now tell me what you’ve been up to. No, no, don’t tell me you haven’t been up to anythin’ because I can tell. Guilt is painted all over your face.”

Her mother’s pretty, fair-skinned face and innocent, liquid brown eyes couldn’t hide a thing from Vivian. Charlotte Patin feared nothing and would dare anything. Her close-cropped gray hair and petite frame added to the impression that she was a dynamo. In fact, she rarely stood still and she hatched a plan a minute. And Vivian adored her. She also knew that her mother was putting a great face on her grief. She and Vivian’s father had lived a love affair. Mama was brave, but David Patin had only been dead a year and Charlotte’s odd, empty expressions, which came and went without warning, made lumps in Vivian’s throat.

“Mama, please,” Vivian said gently. “I know whatever you’ve done is with the best intentions. But—and I’m beggin’ now—put me out of my misery.”

Charlotte hushed her and leaned out of the kitchen door once more.

“Just tell me what you’re up to,” Vivian said. “I’m worried out of my mind about Louis Martin. Where can that man be? That should be all you care about, too, but you’re up to something else. You got off the phone real quick earlier.” Her mother in a stubborn mode was a hard woman to break down.

“I’d better call Louis’s offices in New Orleans and see if he ever left,” Charlotte said, knowing she was going to be on thin ice with Vivian. “I don’t hear any hammerin’ or bangin’ in this house, do you? No? That’s because workers have to be paid and we’re about out of money.” A mother had to do what a mother had to do and right now this mother had to safeguard the little surprise she had planned for the evening.

Vivian shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans. She decided they were better there than taking out her ire on some innocent dish—particularly since most of the dishes around here were actually worth something. “Don’t try to distract me with what I already know,” she said, raising her voice a little. “Tell me the straight truth.”

“She’ll hear you,” Charlotte whispered. “She’s only here because she’s a nosy gossip who finally decided to come and poke around. That woman will run straight from our house to chatter about us to her cronies. She behaves like the lady of the manor visiting the poor on her estates. I can only imagine what she’ll say about us.”

“If I shout at you, she’ll have a lot to say.”

“Oh, all right, I give up. You have no respect. I called that nice Spike Devol and invited him to dinner this evenin’. A handsome man like that all on his own. Such a waste.”

Vivian took a calming breath. “He has his daughter and his father,” she said while she turned to water just under her skin, all of her skin, at the mention of that man. “Anyway, I’m sure he didn’t accept. Why would he?”

For a smart woman who, until months ago, had managed an exclusive hotel in New Orleans, Vivian, Charlotte thought, could be plain stupid. “Well, he did accept and he’ll be here around seven. He may be a deputy sheriff and we know the pay’s not so good, but I hear he does well with that gas station and convenience store his daddy runs for him, and now he’s got his crawfish boilin’ operation.”

She watched for Vivian to react and when she didn’t, said, “He’s obviously not afraid to work and he’s had his hard times with his wife leaving him like that. For a body-builder. There isn’t a thing wrong with Spike’s body as far as I can see. Of course, I haven’t seen—” Vivian’s raised eyebrows brought Charlotte a little caution. “Well, anyway, he’s just about the best-looking single man in these parts, and quiet in that mysterious way some strong men are. I’m tellin’ you, Vivian—”

“Nothing.” Vivian hardly dared to speak at all. “You are telling me nothing and from now on you won’t make one more matchmaking attempt. Y’hear? I can’t imagine where you got all your personal information about him.”

“You like him, too. You have since you first met him. That had to be a couple of years back. I’ve seen how the two of you talk—”

“Not a thing, Mama. You will not do or say another thing on the subject. Give me that tea.” With that, she snatched up the pot. “Bring the cups and saucers and help me get rid of this woman quickly.”

“He had a disappointing thing with Jilly at the bakery in Toussaint—All Tarted Up,” Charlotte said from behind Vivian. “I guess everyone thought they were goin’ somewhere but it didn’t work out. They’re still good friends and I always think that says a lot about people.”

“I know that,” Vivian said.

“Father Cyrus and Spike are good friends so Spike must be a good man.”

Vivian faced Charlotte, pressed a finger to her own lips and said a fierce, “Shh,” before hurrying on, crossing the hall with its towering gold relief plasterwork ceiling and walls hung with faded chartreuse Chinese silk. She entered the shabbily opulent receiving room. With a big grin, she said, “Here we are, Mrs. Hurst. If I say so myself, my mother and I make the best tea I ever tasted.” She grinned even more broadly. “But then, I only drink tea when we’re at home together.”

Apparently Mrs. Hurst didn’t see any humor in what Vivian said. She looked back at her from a couch covered with threadbare gold tapestry and supported on elephant foot legs. Mrs. Hurst’s glistening pink lips hung slightly open and vague confusion hovered in her blue eyes. The woman could have been as young as forty or approaching sixty. It was hard to tell but everything about her was pretty tight, with not a wrinkle or sag in sight. She did have a nineteen-year-old daughter, Olympia, but that didn’t really give much of a clue to the woman’s age.

Vivian remembered to pour tea into three cups.

“Hot tea?” Mrs. Hurst said with horror in her voice. “Well.”

“We drink hot tea in the afternoon,” Charlotte told her. “My English grandmother taught us the right way to do things. Hot tea on a warm afternoon. The tea makes your body temperature higher. Brings it closer to the temperature of the air and you feel cooler. Anyway, Grandmama would turn in her grave if I served you iced tea at this time of day.”

Without further comment Mrs. Hurst accepted her tea. Vivian caught her mother’s eye and winked. Mama’s grandmothers had been French and Mama liked hot tea—that was all there was to it.

“We are so happy at Serenity House,” Mrs. Hurst said. With her younger, handsome husband she lived at the estate that bordered Rosebank to the north. They’d bought the place some months earlier and the building had swarmed with architects, contractors and workmen ever since. Susan Hurst reached for one of her own cookies but thought better of it. “We’re still renovating, of course, but the house is already beautiful. Do please call me Susan, by the way. Dr. Link would like me to take his name but when we were married I chose to keep Hurst because it’s Olympia’s name. Anyway, I believe a woman should have some independence, don’t you? Without appearing strident, that is.”

On the surface Susan’s accent was almost Southern, but that was forced and phony and spread on over something Vivian didn’t recognize. “A woman should never be strident,” she said, and found herself looking at her mother again.

“Never,” Charlotte said. She stood behind Susan. Making outrageous faces at Vivian, she took one exaggerated step backward, then another forward to her starting position. “Never strident.” Vivian’s mother had an irrepressible sense of fun. “I thought your house was called Green Veil.”

Susan managed a haughty toss of the head. “It’s called Serenity House now. Much more refined and appropriate. I’m sorry to see the work on this place slow down so. It’s huge. Such a maze of wings and outbuildings. I’m sure you’ll be relieved to get rid of this Asian jungle theme. Monkeys and pineapples everywhere.” She shuddered discreetly.

“Guy Patin was still in residence when we bought Serenity or we might have looked at this—even if it is in a terrible mess. And the grounds are horrible, you poor things. Give me the word and I’ll send my head gardener over to talk to you. I know he and his crew could give you a few hours a week, or suggest another crew who can. Make sure you don’t get those people who work on Clouds End. Marc and Reb Girard’s place. All that overgrown tropical look wouldn’t appeal to me.”

Vivian had seen Clouds End and her ambition was to have Rosebank look just as lush. The Girards were nice people and had welcomed Charlotte and Vivian to the area. Marc was an architect and Reb the town doctor in Toussaint.

“Rosebank was never on the market,” Charlotte said. “You probably noticed right away that we’re also Patins. Guy was my husband’s brother and the house was left to us.”

“Of course I knew that,” Susan said. “Silly me to forget. We’ve been so busy for such a long time these things slip my mind sometimes.”

“We like what you call the jungle theme, y’know,” Vivian said. She might as well show the woman they weren’t easily intimidated, especially by money. “We’re going to keep it. It’ll be made wonderful again, of course.”

“Poor thing.” Susan patted Vivian’s hand as if she didn’t take a word seriously. “I can see you’re overwhelmed. Let me help you. Did I tell you our pool house is just about finished? It’s all marble. Very Roman and wickedly decadent, but almost edible.” She hunched her shoulders. “Morgan and I want you to use it whenever you have a mind. We know the pool here isn’t usable.”

“Thank you,” Vivian said, making a note never to have a mind for a swim in Susan’s decadent pool. “We do have a gardener and we’re very pleased with him.” Gil Mayes might be seventy-two and a bit crippled by gout but he showed enthusiasm for the work. Unfortunately he moved slowly and the gardens were big, but more men couldn’t be afforded yet, not until some serious money came in.

Susan said, “Hmm,” and flipped back her artfully shaggy red-streaked brown hair. Good-looking, sexy even, her mannerisms were naturally provocative. “I hope you won’t think me too curious, but after all we are neighbors. There are rumors about your having some intentions about this place—not that I believe a word.”

“Of course you don’t,” Charlotte said. “And a very good thing, too.”

If Susan didn’t know their intentions perfectly well Vivian would be amazed. And Mama might enjoy her banter but afternoon crept toward evening and she glanced repeatedly toward the front windows. Vivian knew her own uneasiness was for the same reason that her mother was edgy. Where was Louis?

“It may be crude to say so, but I come from money,” Susan announced. “Might as well have honesty among friends. I’m accustomed to a quieter, more gracious mode of life. It’s true that I’ve had my share of the social whirl in Paris, London, Milan and New York, of course, but I need the life only a true Louisiana lady knows how to live. Quiet. Refined. I’m sure you know what I mean. Soon Serenity will be perfect and I expect a good many visitors—friends—who expect a certain atmosphere at a house party.”

Vivian said, “I thought you wanted peace and quiet, not a load of uppity visitors.”

Vivian spied Boa, short for Queen Boadicea, her hairless Chihuahua. The tiny dog had roused herself from some hiding place and stood in the middle of the green silk rug with one minuscule paw raised. Her black eyes shone while she watched Susan. Like her namesake, Boa just didn’t accept her limitations.

“I didn’t know you had an animal,” Susan remarked. “I prefer big dogs myself, not that I have any.” Her nose wrinkled. “They just aren’t clean.”

“That always depends on the dogs you hang around with.” Vivian made sure she sounded sweet. “Come to me, sweetie pie. Come to mama.”

Her daughter, Charlotte thought, could be charmingly snippy. “I’m sure you’re very happy at Green Veil, Susan.”

“Serenity House.” The woman corrected Charlotte firmly. “Just to put my mind at rest, tell me you don’t intend to turn Rosebank into a hotel with some sort of, well, trendy restaurant.”

With Boa under her arm, Vivian had strolled to the windows and peered out into the rapidly darkening grounds. She heard Susan’s question and winced a little, but she couldn’t concentrate on anything but Louis’s failure to show up. Anger had begun to replace concern. He obviously wasn’t coming now and the way he’d treated them was just plain rude. Louis had always been polite, kind even, but she guessed they might not be important to him if a more valued client needed attention.

She realized there was silence in the room and turned around. Mama was eating a cookie, toothful by toothful, with the kind of close attention that spelled avoidance. Vivian recalled the question Susan had asked. “This will become a hotel, a good hotel, and we will be opening a restaurant in the conservatory. We intend to pull in clients who aren’t necessarily staying with us. My mother and I have a lot of experience in the business. I managed Hotel Floris in New Orleans. My parents owned Chez Charlotte. They ran it together and it was a huge success. I thought everyone in the area knew our plans.”

“A hotel?” Susan set down her cup and saucer and pressed her fingers to her cheeks. “I thought it must be a joke. Say you aren’t serious. Why, at your time of life, Charlotte, you should be taking things easy and enjoying yourself.”

“I will enjoy myself—doing what I like best. Vivian, it’s five-thirty.”

The heavy significance in Mama’s voice meant she was reminding Vivian that they would have a guest for dinner and that Susan Hurst needed to leave.

Susan wasn’t hearing anything that didn’t relate to the reason she was here—to try to influence Charlotte and Vivian onto her side. They would, if she had her way, come to realize that Susan was a superior person who should not be thwarted in any way.

“We have traditions to uphold, we Louisiana ladies. The reason I moved here—what I want from life—is to recreate a way of living that’s in danger of disappearing. I know both of you understand what I mean. Louisiana ladies, and houses like this, are about grace and holding out against progress.” Susan turned up her nose and turned down her mouth. “It’s up to us to keep certain standards alive. With something like a hotel, you could get any sort of person wandering about and most of them just wouldn’t fit in.”

Charlotte sat beside Susan and rested her hand on the back of the woman’s right forearm. “Now you calm yourself and trust our good judgment. We intend to make sure our business doesn’t endanger anyone who lives around here.” The devil had gone to work on her. “Why, we”ve already started looking for a reliable firm of uniformed guards to patrol the grounds—especially when we hold outdoor concerts that will draw lots of young folk.”

“Concerts on the grounds?” Susan said weakly.

“Oh, yes,” Vivian said, her expression angelic. “We’ve already reserved dates with some of the best known zydeco bands around—and some swamp pop, of course. And we’re in negotiation with one or two popular groups—hip-hop will really bring in the crowds.”

Susan was no fool. She narrowed her eyes and cast suspicious glances at each of them. “I think you have very strange senses of humor.”

Vivian didn’t argue. She did look at her watch, then at her mother. They were running short of time if they were going to prepare dinner. Boa nuzzled her neck but repeatedly arched her little back to cast a suspicious glare at Susan.

The phone rang and Vivian went into the hall to answer.

“Vivian,” the voice at the other end said. “It’s Madge at the rectory. Father Cyrus asked me to give you a call.” Madge was Cyrus’s assistant.

“Is something wrong?”

“No! Why would there be? He said you were having a meeting with a New Orleans lawyer earlier this afternoon and you said you’d call and let him know if the news was good. He wanted me to check in with you.”

Vivian yanked on the bottom of her too-short T-shirt. “Now I feel guilty. I should have gotten back with him. We waited all afternoon but Louis didn’t show. Guess we’ll call his office in the morning. Maybe there was a muddle up over the date. Tell Cyrus we’ll talk to him tomorrow, would you?”

Madge agreed and hung up.

And the doorbell gave a rusty buzz.

Charlotte got to her feet at once. “Louis. He must have gotten lost, poor man.” She looked at her watch. “Oh, my, it’s almost six.”

“I’m going to the door,” Vivian said, frowning. “This is turning into a messy evening.”

Charlotte waited for Vivian to add that it was her mother’s fault but she didn’t, although the look in her green, almond-shaped eyes said it all.

“I suppose I should leave,” Susan said, her attention on the hall and curiosity oozing from her pores. “I’ll slip along now. Don’t forget how convenient that path between the two estates is. Come over anytime, anytime at all. You’ll fall in love with Morgan—and Olympia’s a charmer—” She didn’t as much as blink when Charlotte put a hand beneath her elbow and eased her to her feet. “Olympia is a beauty. She’s considering the Miss Southern Belle Pageant. I’ve tried to dissuade her but you can’t stand in children’s way, can you?” Her long sigh wasn’t convincing.

Vivian opened the front door.

Rather than Louis Martin, Deputy Sheriff Spike Devol stood there, a broad-brimmed black Stetson covering his hair, his eyes very blue in a tanned face, and with a bunch of flowers in each hand. Rather than say, “Hi,” or “Good evening,” or even, “Here’s looking at you,” he studied the flowers as if he’d never seen them before and raised and lowered them as if figuring out how to get rid of them.

Behind Spike, bands of purple streaked the setting sun, shading his face but backlighting him with gold. The deputy was in his thirties, with the mature, muscular body of a man who knew all about being physical. His shoulders and arms and his chest filled a crisp, dark gray shirt to capacity, but his hips were slim. His legs weren’t so slim. Once again long, well-developed muscles strained at his clothes, in the best possible way. Vivian felt a definitely sexual thrill.

“Hi there, Spike,” she said, making sure she sounded pleasant but detached. “Mama said you were coming for dinner.” She felt Susan Hurst arrive at her side and knew she’d heard what Vivian had said.

“I’m Susan Hurst. I live next door at Serenity House,” Susan said with a new, husky sound in her voice. “I’m just going to pop along the path and go home. So convenient.”

“That’s nice.” Spike had a deep voice, deep and soft and impossible to read. There was something a little different about him than Vivian had noticed on the previous occasions she’d run into him, but she wasn’t sure what—other than his being out of uniform.

Finally he grasped both bunches of flowers in one hand and took off the Stetson. “Evenin’, Vivian,” he said.

Susan Hurst still hovered.

“Take care,” Vivian told her. “Best make it home while there’s still enough light. It looks like it could rain, too.”

Susan didn’t look happy, but she gave a stiff smile and trotted off, her very nice behind swaying in tailored white slacks.

“C’mon in,” Charlotte said from behind Vivian. “You’re never going to believe this but Susan Hurst’s visit was a surprise. We haven’t gotten far with dinner yet, but it won’t take too long.”

“I’m early,” Spike said in that still voice of his. “I’m useful in the kitchen. I’ll give a hand.”

Vivian stood aside for him to enter and her heart—or the vicinity of her heart—squeezed. As he passed her he looked sideways and down into her face. The faintest of smiles pushed dimples into the creases beside his mouth. His sun-streaked hair, she noticed, had a way of standing up on end in front.

Down girl, down.

“We wouldn’t hear of it,” she said when she found her voice. “What do you like to drink? Make yourself comfortable and we’ll show you how quickly we can get things done.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, inclining his head and broadening his smile enough to deepen those dimples and show very good teeth. He actually made Vivian feel small and feminine and she’d never thought of herself as either.

The phone rang again and Charlotte hurried away, apparently to answer it in the kitchens although she could have done so in the hall. Mama was still in matchmaker mode, but then, she’d been trying to marry Vivian off for years.

“If it won’t upset you,” Spike said, “I’d like to help. I’m not good at sitting still and doing nothing.”

“Neither am I,” she told him emphatically. “I guess it’s because my parents were always busy.”

He only nodded and suddenly thrust both bunches of flowers into her arms. Boa had disappeared at the sound of the doorbell—guarding wasn’t one of her duties—but she chose this moment to skitter into the hall and make a dash for Vivian, screeching to a halt with all four feet braced in the forward position.

“Nice dog,” Spike said, with a look that suggested he wasn’t sure Boa was a dog at all.

“Thank you,” Vivian said, and smiled at him. “Nice flowers. I don’t remember the last time someone gave me any.”

His smile dropped away. “You should be given flowers every day.” Immediately he colored under the tan and the result was disarming. “I thought you could share them with your mother. How is she doin’?”

For an instant she didn’t understand. Then any last reserve against this man melted. He wasn’t just a tall, good-looking piece of manhood, he was thoughtful. And that was a killer combination. Almost no one here mentioned their loss. “Mama’s strong, but she and my dad just about grew up together. It’s hard and it’s going to be hard for a long time. Especially because of the way he died.”

Spike slid the brim of his Stetson through his fingers. “There’s nothing anyone can say to whitewash that. I’m real sorry. Not that it helps.”

David Patin had burned to death in the fire that destroyed Chez Charlotte. “Kindness always helps,” Vivian said feeling the too familiar desire to be alone again.

“Vivian!” Charlotte came from the kitchens and her face was too pale. “I don’t know what to make of it. That was Cyrus. He says when he was walking toward the road, to his car, he saw Louis Martin—driving a brand-new powder-blue Jag.”

Vivian’s mind became blank.

“Y’hear me?” Charlotte said, her voice rising. “That wretch Louis drove all the way here—Cyrus spoke with him—and then he must have decided he couldn’t be bothered and left again.”

Chapter 3

Charlotte marched back to the kitchens while Vivian and Spike shared an uncomfortable silence.

“Louis Martin is our lawyer,” Vivian said. “He was due here this afternoon but he never showed up. We decided he’d forgotten the appointment. Now I don’t know what to think.”

“I think your mother’s right. He drove here then changed his mind. Maybe he got a message and had to turn around.”

“Without taking the trouble to tell us?”

Spike looked at Vivian again and was uncomfortably aware that each time he did so was more disturbing than the last. He liked looking at her but she made him heat up. Ah, what the hell, he’d accepted her mother’s invitation because he wanted an opportunity to be with Vivian long enough to see if there was really a spark between them.

There was a spark.

“Should we check on your mother?” he said.

Vivian nodded and walked ahead of him. Her straight black hair slid around her shoulders. She was one of those women with a tiny waist but plenty of curves north and south. But it was her face he’d kept right on seeing from the first time they’d been introduced, at Bigeaux’s hardware store in Toussaint. Her eyes were unforgettable and he’d spent serious time considering her full mouth. Exotic might be a fair classification, not that he thought she’d fit too easily inside any boundaries.

His father’s sour reaction to this visit wouldn’t leave him. Homer Devol didn’t have much use for women and he didn’t think Spike had any reason to think of them kindly, either. Homer’s parting words this evening had been “Don’t listen to me, then. Go on and make a damn fool of yourself, you. They’re old money and anythin’ between you will look like you’re tryin’ to get above yourself.”

Spike had come anyway, even with Homer’s “Don’t you go bringin’ another woman around if she ain’t gonna stay. Wendy don’t need that.”

He wouldn’t do anything to hurt five-year-old Wendy, no way. But he was a man with a man’s needs and he’d been alone too long.

Charlotte Patin had heaped fresh vegetables onto an enormous and worn cutting block in the center of the kitchen. The room was big and at the apex of the high ceiling was an old-fashioned window that could be opened with a chain on metal cogs and pulleys when the heat got too much. What looked like the original spits were still in a fireplace that had to be more than six feet wide.

“Okay,” Charlotte said. “If you want to help, Spike, chop those.”

He started rolling up his sleeves. “No problem. I’m an expert.”

“Spike brought us flowers, Mama,” Vivian said, not liking the harassed expression on her mother’s face.

Charlotte gave him a sweet smile. “Thank you. They’re lovely. We need something bright and cheerful around here.” She returned to pulling food out of the refrigerator.

Foreboding slipped over Vivian like a cold shroud. What would make Louis turn away when he’d already gotten here? “Will you excuse me for a few minutes, please,” she said, avoiding Spike’s serious glance. “I’ll be right back.”

She hurried from the kitchens with Boa at her heels. Where she thought she was going, she didn’t know, but she had to get somewhere and breathe outdoor air while she thought.

On the other side of the main hall from the receiving room was a small, even more shabby sitting room with disappearing corners that made it seem rounded. Uncle Guy hadn’t been well for some years and he’d let Rose-bank go, but she and Charlotte would make it beautiful again. Vivian raised her chin. She couldn’t give up now. They’d find the money to carry on the renovations. This place was their only chance to make up for what they’d lost.

In the sitting room she picked up the phone beside a gilt chair with an unraveling cane seat. She called directory enquiries for New Orleans and gave the name of Louis’s firm—never expecting to get a response at this time of day.

“Legrain here.”

She almost hung up. “This is Vivian Patin. My mother and I are clients of Louis Martin.”

“Well yes, Ms. Patin. I know your name. I’m Louis’s associate, Gary Legrain. I believe we’ve met.”

She didn’t remember. “Did Louis set out to visit us today?”

A short silence. “Why, yes. He left this mornin’.”

“He didn’t get here.”

More silence. “That’s not possible. If something had happened, a car accident or whatever, we’d have heard.”

“I was hoping he’d gone back to his offices,” Vivian said, the cold feeling intensifying. She hadn’t considered Louis getting in a car wreck after he turned back.

Gary was quiet for too long before he said, “He didn’t come back,” and sounded funny.

“Could he have gone home? Felt ill perhaps and decided to call it a day? Maybe Mrs. Martin—”

“There isn’t a Mrs. Martin anymore. He has grown children but he lives alone—except for staff. Let me call them and get back to you.”

“Don’t call,” Vivian said. “My mother’s a bit anxious. I’ll call you in five minutes.”

They hung up and she waited, praying Mama wouldn’t come looking for her. Fortunately, when Mama cooked, she tended to forget everything else.

Vivian called Gary Legrain again.

“He isn’t there,” the man said and although he was obviously trying to sound unconcerned, she’d unsettled him. “Look, this isn’t too comfortable to talk about and the last person I should say anything to is a client but I don’t know what else to do.”

Vivian waited.

“Ms. Patin, recently I’ve been happy to know that Louis has a new companion in his life. Well, this is…hmm, apparently they don’t like to be parted. If I had to guess—”

“You’d say Louis got to our front door and was overcome by a mad need to bang his girlfriend? Yes, I understand. When you see him, Mr. Legrain, please let him know I’d like to hear from him.”

“Ms. Patin, I’m sure it wasn’t quite like that.”

“Are you? Thank you for your help.” She hung up, disconcerted by her own bluntness and embarrassed at her sharp treatment of Gary Legrain who had been doing his best to smooth things over.

She and Charlotte didn’t want to take on more loans, not without being certain Guy hadn’t planned this whole thing. He’d been principled, but a joker. It would be like him to let them have a taste of really wanting the place and not being able to afford it before help showed up in some form. When Louis had set up today’s meeting, he’d alluded to a considerable infusion of funds from Guy’s estate, “In a strange way.”

Each time Vivian confronted the mess that was her life she thought about her father. He must have been frantic to put his business to rights. Family, his wife and daughter, came first for David Patin.

She heard laughter, actual laughter from the kitchens and felt a rush of unfounded jealousy. Hearing her mother laugh should make her happy. Hearing Spike laugh did give her a lot of feelings, feelings she had no time for.

Snatching the flashlight they kept at the bottom of the staircase in the hall, Vivian slipped quickly and quietly through a maze of corridors lined with closed doors until she found the one that led into an overgrown formal garden at the back of the house, behind the south wing.

Warmth still clung to the evening and the sweet, sultry scents of honeysuckle and clematis blossoms sweetened the air. Crickets and frogs had taken over the soggy grass and sang out their raucous chant.

She walked around the perimeter of the south wing, continued to the end of the west wing and finally reached the front of the house. Rosebank was shaped like an “H” set out at an angle, and with what would be the cross stroke of the letter joining the north and west wings to the east and south wings. Outbuildings nestled into the central courtyards on either side. The original stables, their wide gates flanked with columns to match those at the front of the house, were used as the garage.

Susan Hurst had been right when she said the place was huge. But that would be useful if the renovations could start again and move ahead steadily. Just ten guest rooms were all she felt they had to deal with to get started. Ten rooms and the restaurant they planned for a detached, wonderfully preserved, conservatory.

Damn, damn. If only they’d get some breaks. Even little ones would lift their spirits. Vivian left the shadow of the house and headed down the tree-lined driveway on the left-hand verge. She could have made her way nicely without the flashlight but liked using it. One of the things she loved about being here, had loved since she used to visit Uncle Guy when she was a kid, was how safe it felt. Year to year nothing changed.

There was a softness out here that took some of the pressure off her chest.

What did she expect to find at the end of the drive? Louis Martin with some excuse about a flat tire?

She ought to go back.

Rustling overhead made her pick up Boa who continued to try to keep up with her mistress. Crows, Vivian’s least favorite birds, flew, black blotches against a leaden purple sky where the already set sun still threw up a faint patina from behind a hill.

Just to the gates and back. She needed a walk. Louis was with his lady friend, darn him. She tried to imagine him in the throes, so to speak, and shuddered, then felt nasty.

Only the crickets, the frogs, and a host of gentle evening sounds reached her through the first spatter of raindrops on leaves, but she didn’t linger. Once she’d looked up and down the road, and felt foolish for doing so, she walked back, swinging her flashlight from side to side.

The crows puzzled her. They tended to settle by now rather than go on the wing with such determination. Boa grew stiff in her arms. The dog moaned, then set up a thin whine.

Vivian’s spine prickled. Yelping, taking her by surprise, Boa shot from her grasp and took off between two trees and into the undergrowth.

“Boa? Sweetie? C’mon back.” Shoot, Boa never got it that any animal she decided to chase off was likely to be bigger than she was, and mean. She followed the dog and shone the flashlight where Boa seemed to have disappeared. The tangle of overgrown shrubs formed an impenetrable barrier, unless you happened to be a five-pound dog.

A side road toward the north turned off a few yards ahead. It was designed for a grounds crew to access some of the more remote areas. Vivian ran toward it. She might be able to head Boa off from there.

Where was it? Oh, c’mon, where was it? She began to sweat, and feel sick. It was small, not much more than a track that allowed for a single vehicle, but where was it? Ranging back and forth, she searched but couldn’t find where the track veered off.

Boa’s eerie wailing continued to reach her and she took some comfort in that. Then Vivian stood still and gauged where the track should be, and was, of course. She was too upset to be sensible.

“Boa,” she called, but without any energy.

She found it, the place where she could see the track pass through the verge. And it was exactly where she’d thought it was, only there was no break between shrubs anymore. Her stomach clenched and she looked toward the house, considered going for company if not for help. And she’d look stupid and everyone would think she was overreacting. She shone the flashlight carefully along the area. Three big laurel bushes in tubs stood, closely side-by-side, and hid the little road completely.

Gil must be experimenting with some different looks.

Vivian squeezed between two tubs. Layers of pewter-colored clouds darkened the purple sky and no hint of the dead sun remained. She swung her flashlight. Critters skittered away from the light. She saw the sleek, white body of a nutria, its long rat tail fat as it slithered out of sight. She hated this. In many ways she was a city girl, not a country girl. If an alligator showed up she really would lose it.

Boa’s complaints had grown quieter but they were still steady, and not too far away, Vivian decided. She would not leave her dog alone out here. “Boa? Come here, girl.” The dog didn’t rush to her and there was no choice but to go on. What could be so scary about walking through grounds she was growing to know well?

A glint. A flicker of light passed over a smooth surface, and Vivian aimed her light in that direction.

She stopped walking and peered ahead. The top of a car, pale and glossy and only yards away.

Boa, bursting from the bushes, barking wildly and rushing at her, raised Vivian’s spirits. She’d grab the dog and run for it.

Before she could reach Boa, the dog dashed away again, her barks changing to a wail.

“Is there anyone there?” Vivian called tentatively. “Hello, who’s there?”

Large raindrops beat hard on the top of her head and her face. Clouds extinguished a struggling moon and a breeze picked up.

She didn’t take foolish risks, but how could she be in danger here? For all she knew, there’d been an abandoned car here all along. She certainly hadn’t been all through the tangled grounds.

Sometimes snakes infested old cars.

That stopped her. She couldn’t stand snakes.

Snakes could kill Boa so easily.

Vivian discovered all that stood between her and the vehicle were two more tubs of laurel, one of which had fallen against the other. Boa ran out and away again as if she were trying to lead Vivian. She hesitated. The laurels were intended to hide something—the car.

“Okay, I’m coming, Boa.” Rain became steady and harder. She’d likely be soaked in a few minutes. “Boa!”

No one lay in wait. If they did, she’d feel their presence and she didn’t.

The car, a new Jaguar in a pale shade, stood with its nose into the scrub on one side of the track. Not a sound came from it. Why would it? But why would someone abandon a new Jaguar in…Hadn’t Cyrus said Louis was driving a new blue Jaguar?

Vivian backed away. She patted the waistband of her jeans, only to discover she didn’t have her cell phone.

Rustling made her skin crawl and she looked up to see crows, undaunted by the rain, lining the branches above. More birds perched on the rim of the driver’s door which stood open. These sentinels took it in turns, crying out and complaining, to hop down into the car. Each one then flew to the branches with something pale in its beak.

Vivian held her breath. The birds creeped her out. She could go to pieces, or she could keep calm and see what this was all about.

The flashlight picked up dark splotches on the car windows. Vivian had no idea what they were and walked gingerly around to the driver’s side.

She saw a trousered leg—already soaked—and foot, minus its shoe, trailing from the vehicle. Drawn on by determination and horrible fascination, she inched closer. Dripping, Boa sat by the foot and her wail became an unearthly screech.

Death, that’s what made dogs howl like that.

Vivian ducked to look inside the car, and immediately retched. She turned aside and threw up until she felt empty and weak. Despite the downpour, sweat slid over her skin, cold, clammy. Her legs trembled. Once more she made herself look in at what was left of Louis Martin.

The remains of a discarded bag of hamburgers and french fries added the smell of rancid fried food to other disgusting odors. This food was the crows’ spoils.

Louis’s neck had been slashed so deep his head rested at an impossible angle on top of his briefcase and the dark splotches she’d seen were his blood. Blood everywhere, blood that turned his shirt and jacket black.

Across his chest rested a single white rose.

Chapter 4

Rain came through the windows in the kitchen ceiling. Spike waited for Charlotte to notice but she was busy making pastry, a hazelnut crust for a leek and Brie pie. He was used to simple meals, quickly prepared, and only Wendy kept him just about on the straight and narrow with the main food groups.

He closed the windows.

Vivian had been gone half an hour or more. It wasn’t his place to mention this to Charlotte.

The vegetables he’d finished cutting up were in a pressure cooker and he’d cleaned the chopping block. Everywhere he looked he imagined Vivian there, doing whatever she did, and the feelings he got disturbed him. He wasn’t a man who moved fast when it came to women, not anymore. Once he’d made that mistake…no, not a mistake—his haste had given him Wendy.

“Vivian goes off on her own like this,” Charlotte said without looking up. “Always has. She thinks a lot and likes a little time alone sometimes. She’s unusual in the kind of way that catches a person’s interest.”

“I can tell she’s unusual,” Spike said with honesty.

“She doesn’t have a temper, mind. Just never gets cross. Very easygoing, very reliable. A good mind, too, and creative.”

Spike said, “I’m sure.”

“Never a bad word about a soul,” Charlotte continued. “Heart of gold and the patience of a saint.”

He crossed his arms and rested his chin on his chest. If he didn’t know better he’d think Vivian’s mother was giving a commercial message about her girl.

From the corner of her eye, Charlotte saw Spike lean against a counter and seem deep in thought. She had good instincts where men were concerned. She’d always been able to pick out the good ones and she was sure Spike Devol was one of the best. David had been the best of all and she’d picked him for herself. Fortunately he’d picked her, too, and they’d made love at first sight a reality.

She blinked back tears she rarely indulged and finished rolling out her crust.

The silence grew too long for Spike. “Is Vivian your only child?”

“One and only. We would have liked more but it just didn’t happen.”

“Maybe there’s just one child meant specially for some of us?” he suggested, feeling awkward.

“I’d like to meet your Wendy,” Charlotte said. “I hear she’s a sweet one. But you’re young, you’ve got plenty of time to have more beautiful children. Would you like more?”

Charlotte Patin asked her questions easily so even the real personal ones didn’t sound out of line, not too much out of line. “I can’t think about that now. Between bein’ Deputy Sheriff and runnin’ a business—and keeping up with a busy little girl and an ornery, well, with my dad—there isn’t much time left over.”

“But you wouldn’t mind having more?” The crust moved magically from a board to cover a full pie dish. “Sometimes more are easier, or so I’ve been told.”

“I guess I wouldn’t mind,” Spike said with the sensation that he’d finally said what Charlotte wanted to hear, although if she was matchmaking he couldn’t understand why. Vivian could have any man she wanted and even if she were attracted to him, which he just thought she might be, she wouldn’t be interested in getting too close to his baggage.

“Better get on with it, then,” Charlotte said. “It’s best to have your children when you’re young so you’re still young when they leave you. Then it’s time for the second honeymoon, the one that keeps on going.”

Spike’s smile charmed Charlotte. She decided he made her feel a whole lot younger herself. Dimples like that, and those teeth. His children couldn’t help being handsome—any more than Vivian’s could.

“I do believe you’re laughing at me, Spike Devol,” she said, tipping her head on one side.

“Just smiling at the thought of beautiful babies,” he told her. “Now that’s a picture worth smiling about. When you hold your own baby for the first time—” he shook his head “—you feel the happiest you ever felt, then sad at the same time because that moment is too short. I like having the memory.”

Well, Charlotte thought, if he wasn’t the nicest man she’d met in a long time. Not opposed to more children, either, and a hard worker. It was time Vivian married and had some grandchildren—children that was, grandchildren for Charlotte who was wasted without any. She decided not to mention Spike’s father. She’d already heard Homer’s reputation around Toussaint. Word had it that he was a bitter man with no time for women.

“Everyone says your dad idolizes little Wendy,” she said. Couldn’t be any harm in saying that.

“She’s the only one he gives a damn about.”

Charlotte looked at him and smiled a little. He blushed easily and she liked that. “That must be what he wants you to think. I never did meet a parent who didn’t love their own child.”

Spike wasn’t so sure about that but he kept his own counsel. “I can watch things here if you want to go check on Vivian.” That sounded nonchalant enough. He was beginning to worry she’d hidden herself away because she didn’t want to be around him.

“No need,” Charlotte said lightly. “She probably decided to shower and change. The day kinda got away from us.”

Spike spent a few satisfying moments considering Vivian in the shower, then rubbing her skin dry until it turned pink.

The front doorbell rang and the heavy door opened, then shut with a reverberating thud. Eventually a voice he recognized as belonging to Cyrus called from the passageway into the behind-stairs area, “Charlotte, where are you?”

“In the kitchen,” she called back. “Come on in.”

Cyrus entered, his black hair plastered to his head and his shirt stuck to his shoulders and chest.

“You’re soaked,” Spike said. “It must be tipping down to do that on the way from your car.”

“Come stand by the oven,” Charlotte told Cyrus. “Let me guess, you won’t listen to reason because you know everything, so that beat-up Chevy of yours is parked out by the road yet again.”

Cyrus looked sheepish. “Be nice to my Chevy,” he said of the maroon station wagon he’d driven for years and which several parishioners managed to keep running most of the time. “I park it there because it’s easier if I need a tow truck.” His shirt started to steam a little in the warmth from the oven. “Remind me to fill you in on Ozaire Dupre, Spike. He’s hopping mad about you taking food out of his family’s mouths…his words. Exaggeration, of course.”

Spike ground his back teeth. “There’s enough boiling business for both of us in this town. He just thinks he should get it all. Okay, we’ll get to him later.” Ozaire was the custodian at St. Cécil’s and his wife, Lil, kept house for Cyrus. Spike didn’t know how anyone could put up with them.

“Put your troubles aside, Father, you’re in plenty of time for a good, hot meal,” Charlotte said and grimaced. “We had company that didn’t want to go home and she made me late with dinner.”

“I’ve eaten,” Cyrus said. “Thanks anyway. Madge made us muffulettas that must have weighed a pound apiece. That girl can make magic with a mess of oysters and mud-bugs.”

“She surely can,” Spike agreed. Cyrus and Madge sometimes troubled him. The priest was married to his calling and his church and Madge served the man and his passions with cheerful efficiency, but Spike had known both of them too long not to have felt the bond between them, the unrequited love—at least on Madge’s part, and Cyrus’s affection and protectiveness toward her.

“You hung up on me, Charlotte,” Cyrus said.

Spike watched the woman’s facial expression with interest. He’d swear she had no recollection of hanging up on Cyrus.

“I did not,” she said. “Well, maybe I didn’t exactly say goodbye but you shocked me when you said Louis had come to Rosebank and left without seeing us.”

“But you’re okay, just disappointed?”

“Mad would be closer,” Charlotte said. “Just wait till I talk to that man.”

This time it was the phone that jangled and Charlotte plucked a cordless off the wall. “Rosebank.” The look on her face put Spike on alert. Cyrus also watched her closely. “What’s wrong?” Her voice rose. “You sound as if you’re outside. Where are you calling from? Your cell phone’s here by the sink. No, I won’t put Spike on the line. Tell me what’s goin’ on right now.”

She listened for not more than two seconds before thrusting the receiver at Spike. “She’ll only speak to you. I don’t know what’s happened.”

“Hey, Vivian,” he said. There was no reason to be elated she’d asked for him but he was anyway.

He could hear her teeth chattering but she didn’t answer him. Boa yapped in the background.

“Vivian?”

“Yes, sorry. Something awful has happened. I need help.”

“Stay calm,” he said out of habit. “Where are you?”

“In the grounds out front of the house.”

He stopped himself from asking what she was doing there. “Are you hurt?” He headed for the front door, catching up his Stetson as he went.

“I’m fine. No, I’m not fine, I’m scared. It’s Louis Martin. He’s been hurt.”

“I’m on my way. Guide me to you. Hang on.” He turned back and said, “Cyrus, stay with Charlotte and be ready in case we need to get more help.”

“Please hurry,” Vivian said. “It’s terrible. I can’t leave. You can’t leave someone like this.”

“That’s right,” he said. “I’m coming to you. I’m outside the house now. Standing on the steps.”

She gave him directions and he followed them, quickly getting drenched himself. Each time he looked at the ground, water ran from the brim of his hat. Edging between potted laurels, he saw the flashlight she’d told him she had. He still had to walk a winding track to where a couple more laurels blocked the way. Then he pushed through and saw a car. He turned his own flashlight on Vivian who leaned against the trunk of the vehicle, her head dropped forward and a phone pressed to her ear. She held a destroyed white rose in the same hand. He turned his phone off.

“Hey, hey,” he said, running to her. A man’s leg extended from the open driver’s door. “Everything’s okay, sweetheart. Here, hold on to me. Let me use your phone to call for the local law then I’ll get you into the house.” He considered putting his Stetson on her but she’d only be more uncomfortable with her wet hair pressed to her head.

Vivian fell into his arms. “You are the law.”

“This isn’t my jurisdiction. One way to make sure you don’t get along with the guys in a neighboring parish is to interfere with their turf. And, unfortunately, I have some history in Iberia. I worked here once and managed to step on the wrong toes.”

“You’re the law,” she repeated as if he hadn’t spoken. “Louis is dead. I checked. He doesn’t have a pulse. They slit his throat. There’s blood everywhere.”

Spike held her face against his shoulder and bent to see inside the car. “You looked for a pulse?”

“There isn’t one.”

“You’ve got guts.” The corpse wasn’t a pretty sight. Spike wished he could have spared Vivian this. He eased back and looked into her face, what he could see of it. Her hair obscured all but the spaces she’d made to see and speak. “Your mama said your phone was in the kitchen.”

“This is Louis’s.”

He swallowed. “Where’d you find it?”

“In his briefcase. I had to pull it from under his head. It was awful. I thought it was going to…fall off,” she finished in a whisper.

“Hush.” All he could think of was how badly she’d interfered with evidence. “The thorns on that rose are going to mess up your fingers.”

“They…I mean whoever did this left the flower on his chest.” She swallowed and swallowed as if she would vomit. “They—someone kissed him on the cheek. I don’t think they did it with lipstick. I think they put their mouth in his blood.”

Shee-it. Sick bastard had set the scene all right. Too bad Vivian had been the one to stumble on it. He’d dealt with these situations before and he knew to expect her to have problems dealing with what she’d experienced. His next thought was about Errol Bonine, the lazy detective who would definitely be assigned to the case. Wait till he saw what had been done to his crime scene. And finding Spike in the vicinity would only make the slob’s night.

Running with mixed water and blood, and obviously covered with Vivian’s prints, the victim’s phone was so contaminated Spike figured he might as well use it. If the instrument had been in the briefcase, with Martin’s head on top of it, chances were the killer never touched or even saw it. He held it between finger and thumb to call the police, was patched through to Bonine at home, and had to listen to the ass’s warnings not to put his nose into Errol’s business if Spike knew what was good for him. Officers would be arriving to make sure nothing was touched and nobody left the scene, Bonine told him, but Spike should fill in until they got there.

He clicked off and turned back for the house, supporting Vivian and with her little dog running circles around them. “Cry if you need to,” he said. “Sometimes it helps. You’re in shock. Bound to be.”

She didn’t answer him.

“Whoever did that was trying too hard.”

“What do you mean?” Her voice sounded faint and choked.

“He—if it was a he and the chances are it was—he went overboard with the setup. Made it almost comic.”

“Not funny,” she mumbled.

“Not funny,” he agreed and tried to brush more of her hair out of her face.

She clung to him fiercely enough to dig her nails into his flesh. “Like a serial killer. They do things like that, don’t they? Leave the signs each time they kill because they want people to know it’s them.”

“Some do,” he said. “Although they don’t do much singing until they’re caught and want bragging rights behind bars. But let’s not think about this being a first killing with more to follow. Could be isolated and the perp tossed in the window dressing to throw us off.”

“Spike.” She looked up at him. “I want you to do this, not a stranger.”

If he had time for the luxury, he’d be flattered. “I’ll give you any personal help you’ll let me, but I have to defer to the local guys.”

“Will you be with me when they come?”

He groaned inwardly, anticipating Errol’s sneering displeasure. “If you want me, I’ll be there.”

“I want you.”

Timing had never been his friend. If he was going to be as much help as he could around here, he’d have to make sure he kept his head clear and his hormones under control. Hell, that shouldn’t be hard. He was a professional.

He’d barely steered Vivian into the hall, and confronted Charlotte and Cyrus, when the sound of a siren reached them.

Cyrus said, “Bad?”

Spike nodded and said, “That’ll be a patrol car. The officers will start sealing off the—they’ll do their thing.”

“Oh, Vivian.” Charlotte reached for her daughter, but if Vivian noticed she chose to ignore the gesture.

What Spike felt was entirely too conflicted to be appropriate. That would change and quickly. “Let your mother help you get dry,” he said. “I need to speak with the police. Charlotte, I also need a plastic bag right now.”

Vivian dropped her hands at once, but she shook her head, turning down any assistance from Charlotte, who didn’t waste time arguing. She sped away and returned with a self-sealing plastic bag and opened it for Spike to drop Louis Martin’s phone inside. He set it on a marble-topped demi-lune table and rested the mangled rose on top.

“We could go into the kitchens maybe,” Cyrus said—ever the diplomat. “Get out of the hall so we don’t look like we’re hovering.”

A young officer arrived at the door. Spike expected him to ask exact directions to the scene and to tell them they should all remain in the house. The man looked at Spike as if he knew him and said, “Detective Bonine said you’d make sure nobody leaves before he gets here.”

He left and they turned to get out of the hall.

They never made it to the kitchens before Errol Bo-nine clomped in without so much as a knock. “Detective Bonine,” he said, flashing his badge around. “Who found the stiff?”

Errol watched too many big city cop shows and subtlety had never been his middle name. His partner, as slim and fit-looking as Errol was paunchy—and sloppy—looked vaguely apologetic. Spike figured Bo-nine had cowed the younger man into being no more than his errand boy.

A few years earlier Errol had tried that on Spike and found out he had a maverick on his hands, a maverick with brains. From that day on, stomping on anyone who might make it easy for Errol to keep up his cozy arrangements with the local muscle had become Spike’s reason to live.

Eventually Spike had taken a walk down an alley. He didn’t remember that alley so well when he woke up in hospital, beaten to a pulp. He’d been told he was fired for jeopardizing the reputation of the force, and pressured out of New Iberia.

“Best get over the shock,” Errol said to the company, yanking his tightly cinched pants higher under his belly. He wore a heavy khaki duster which probably accounted for his redder than usual face and the sweat running from beneath his greased-back gray hair and down his shiny jowls. Errol had always loved his duster and apparently thought it turned him into a romantic figure, a cowboy cop, although he never let anyone forget he was a detective. “Givin’ in to weakness slows things down. Who found the body?”

“I did,” Vivian said in barely a whisper.

“You didn’t say who you were,” Spike said to Errol’s partner.

The man fumbled to produce his badge. “Wiley. Frank Wiley.”

“Good to meet you,” Spike said and deliberately raised his voice a notch when he added, “Spike Devol. I’m Deputy Sheriff over in Toussaint and thereabouts.”

Errol had actually been too pumped up with showing how important he was to notice Spike in civilian clothes. He noticed him now. “I forgot to ask you on the phone. What the fuck you doin’ here, Devol? You know what I said I’d do to you if I caught you messin’ in my territory.”

“Aw, that’s nice of you Errol, but I wouldn’t hear of you putting yourself out,” Spike said, making sure his face didn’t show what he was thinking. “Good evening to you. I’m a guest here. Just happened to show up on a bad night.” He didn’t want trouble in front of Vivian and Charlotte—or Cyrus for that matter.

Errol’s mustache, which stuck straight out to begin with, bristled and brought unpleasant memories back to Spike. Errol said, “You seen the body?” Suspicion narrowed his eyes.

“Yes. As she already told you, Miss Vivian Patin here found it when she was looking for her dog. Then she called in here for help.” Might as well get the first round of rage over. He angled his head at Louis’s phone in the plastic bag and said, “I went out. That’s the victim’s cell phone. The rose is also from the scene.”

Errol’s chubby hand settled on his notebook and he looked from the phone to Spike. If possible, his face turned an even deeper shade of puce and puffed up. “I hope you’re tellin’ me the victim was in this house and left that behind,” he said.

“No,” Vivian said in a firmer voice. “He was on his way here but never arrived.”

Cyrus stepped forward and extended a hand. “I’m Father Cyrus Payne, Detective. St. Cécil’s in Toussaint. The unfortunate dead man is Mr. Louis Martin from New Orleans. He’s a lawyer and deals with Charlotte and Vivian Patin’s affairs.”

Errol sneered and managed to convey a “who asked you and who cares about the small stuff?” expression. “I was,” he said, “asking how that phone got into this house.”

“It was in Louis’s briefcase,” Vivian said in a rush, ignoring Spike’s attempted signals to keep quiet. “I’d left my phone in here and I figured he had to have one somewhere. I couldn’t leave his body, could I? I found the phone in his briefcase which wasn’t an easy thing to do because his head was resting on the case and his throat has been cut so there’s a lot of slippery blood around. And Louis’s head is heavy.”

She caught her breath and swallowed loudly enough for Spike to hear.

“I did put the briefcase back in pretty much the position I found it.” Her speech slowed and she blinked rapidly. “Um, I don’t suppose I should have touched anything but I could only think of getting help. There’s a kiss on his face—made with blood, I think.”

Charlotte backed up and sat on the bottom step of the stairs. She held her throat.

Vivian rushed on as if she was bent on making things as bad as possible for herself. “Now I think of it, I do think the killer may have taken something out of the briefcase because the only thing in there was a folder with our name on it and a single piece of paper in it, an agreement for us to sign, inside. And the phone, of course. There was supposed to be something else, or we expected something else, but it wasn’t there.” She paused for breath again and frowned. “The phone could have been touched by the murderer then, couldn’t it? Oh, dear.”

“Wiley,” Errol said softly. “Call for some backup—including a female officer. Stay here until the others show up. We need a search warrant.”

“Why?” Spike said. “What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

“I run a tight ship. Unlike you, I cover all my bases—officially. But since you’re here, I’m goin’ to ask you to do some scut work, Devol. Might make things go easier on you. Call and arrange a search warrant. Tell ’em we got a body outside and the deceased’s cell phone—covered with his blood—in the house. We gotta make sure there ain’t no more of his effects mysteriously hanging around here.”

Spike opened his mouth to tell Errol…to remind him that Spike wasn’t paid by anyone in Iberia anymore. Instead he said, very carefully, “They aren’t going to take that request from me—even if I was prepared to make it. Don’t you think you might want to start at the crime scene? You know, the one where there’s a body, and get things taken care of there?”

“Wiley, don’t let these people out of your sight,” Errol snapped. “Devol, I’ll speak to you outside.”

“By all means,” Spike said. If Errol wanted a fight it could take place outside, away from Vivian and Charlotte. Cyrus was a different matter; he was no stranger to violence, but he was needed with the women.

Before Spike and Errol could get to the door, the wheels of another vehicle crunched to a halt in front of the house, a door rattled open and shut, and fleet footsteps rushed to the steps.

L’Oiseau de Nuit, locally known as Wazoo, whirled her small, black-clad body into the hallway. Spike groaned but Cyrus thumped him on the back and said, “‘Evenin’, Wazoo. What brings you this way?”

Wazoo, arms extended to make the best of trailing filmy sleeves, allowed her eyelids to droop and made unintelligible sounds. A flamboyant medium from New Orleans who had descended on Toussaint a little more than a year ago, she had set up permanent shop in the twelve-room Majestic Hotel where, according to local gossip, business boomed.

“The sight,” she said, opening her dark eyes and looking intently at Errol Bonine. “A blessin’ and a curse I’m tellin’ you. Death am here. I felt it—and maybe saw a thing or two—and I come right here to do what I the only one can do. I need to talk with him on the other side now.”

“Go home, lady,” Errol said. “Do it before I change my mind about letting you leave at all. Just climb on your broom and fly away.” He made flapping motions with one hand.

Promptly, Wazoo descended to sit cross-legged on the floor with her many-layered dress floating about her. “I feel evil in the house,” she said. “I must stay to protect the innocent.”

“Shee-it,” Errol said with great feeling. “Devol, make yourself useful and call the station for more backup. Wiley’s got his hands full.”

“Dial on the way to the scene,” Spike said, walking out of the door. “You’ll have seen lights being set up when you arrived so you know where it is.”

“I told you to make a call.”

Spike smiled engagingly. “You know the number, I’ve forgotten it.”

He glanced back at Vivian who gave him a pretty encouraging smile for a woman who had a right to feel she’d joined the circus, and he warmed up around the knots of anger that were eating him up.

Chapter 5

Cyrus had pinned Errol Bonine’s partner as a man who would do whatever he was told, but he’d been wrong. As soon as Spike left with Bonine the younger detective withdrew a distance from everyone else. And Wiley, a lithe brown-haired man with a thoughtful face, showed no intention of continuing Bonine’s badgering ways.

Evidently Charlotte had come to a similar conclusion. She said, “There’s hot coffee in the kitchen. Would anyone like some? You, Detective Wiley?”

A smile turned him into a pleasant and engaging man. “I would be forever in your debt, ma’am.” When Charlotte turned away, Wiley said, “Why don’t we all go into the kitchen?”

Everyone, including Wazoo, did as he suggested and Cyrus doubted any one of them resented Wiley tipping his hat to his partner’s instructions to watch over all of them.

Cyrus walked behind Wazoo and when he saw the opportunity, caught her by the arm and turned her gently toward him.

She looked at his hand on her arm. “You don’t wanna do that, God man. Your magic not strong enough to fight with mine. Could be, I hurt you without meaning to.” She looked directly into his face and he realized again that she couldn’t be more than thirty-five or so and without the bizarre getup, she’d be a pretty woman. For an instant her eyes were unfocused, then she said, “Kisses of blood,” and dropped her head back to send up thin moans, “the devil’s work.”

With his free hand, Cyrus moved her tangled hair, revealing a wire running from an earpiece, undoubtedly to a radio hidden somewhere on her person. “Get pretty good reception on that thing, do you? It’s probably a big help to your magic and invaluable when you need to see the exact location of bad news.”

“You don’ know what you sayin’. L’Oiseau de Nuit jest helpin’ out, me. People are grateful for that.”

Cyrus waved her ahead of him to the kitchen thinking, and there goes voodoo’s answer to an ambulance chaser.

Chapter 6

Spitting tacks without moving your face took talent. On the other hand, Spike thought his face might crack if he twitched a muscle, that and he’d start spilling what he thought of Errol Bonine.

“Never saw such a screw-up,” Errol told the gathering in the kitchen.

Spike caught Frank Wiley’s eye and did his best to ease up on the rage when the man winked at him.

“Crime scene folks are out there now. Reckon it’ll take ’em forever and it don’t help that just about every-thin’s been handled.” He eyeballed not Charlotte, but Vivian, and said, “I’m gonna be talkin’ to you and everyone else here for a few hours, then I’ll give you a break tonight but things are gonna get hot and heavy in the mornin’—late mornin’ on account of I got other duties first.”

Drinking and sleeping, Spike thought.

Vivian nodded but didn’t speak to Bonine.

“I don’t want any of you gettin’ the idea I’m thinkin’ you’re a suspect. Reckon all we got here is a random situation and we’ll never find out who did it.”

Spike chewed his tongue. He’d heard Errol spout the same advance excuses for his own incompetence before. A man who just wanted to pose and draw a paycheck didn’t cotton to the kind of hard work that went into successful investigations.

“Could be somethin’ else, but I doubt it. But you—” Errol pointed at Vivian “—you made a lot of work out there with your messin’. Don’t keep me hangin’ around when I get back tomorrow, y’hear? Be here when I need you and say your prayers I don’t have to take you in—”

“Can it, Bonine,” Spike said. Enough was enough. “She’s an innocent bystander who happened on a corpse. Leave her alone.”

“You’re forgettin’ your place, sonny,” Bonine said, smiling in a way that let Spike know the man enjoyed baiting an old enemy he’d decided was powerless. “Keep it zipped or I’ll have to speak to someone in Toussaint. And pour me some of that coffee.”

“Wipe your own ass,” Spike said through his teeth and instantly rubbed a hand over his face. Of all the things to say in front of Vivian and her mother—and Cyrus.

He needn’t have worried about Cyrus, who laughed like he’d bust a gut and said, “Never heard such language before. Your penance is to call for senior bingo next month.”

Chapter 7

The second day

Vivian had debated whether she should tell her mother she’d decided to go to Spike’s place, even if it was two in the morning, and take him the dinner he never got to eat. She needn’t have worried about Charlotte’s reaction because she behaved as if the mission were all her own idea.

A deputy stood guard at the entrance to Rosebank, the driveway was lined with official vehicles and there were floodlights in the area where she’d found Louis. Only the police and the experts were allowed in or out of the main driveway. Since no one paid any attention to the second gate that led from the back of the property to a side road and Vivian’s green van was parked in the yard of the old stable where it couldn’t be seen from the front of the house, leaving hadn’t been a problem.

After five hours during which his partner and a female officer made sure Vivian and Charlotte, Spike and Cyrus didn’t have a chance to talk to one another in private, the hateful Detective Bonine had abruptly stopped his round of interviewing them, one by one. Spike and Cyrus had been dismissed with warnings to “be available.” Vivian and Charlotte were told, “It’s in your best interests not to plan any trips.” Bonine had pulled Vivian aside and said, “I’ll be back,” before scuffing from the house.

Spike had left about an hour earlier so he could only have been home half an hour at most. He was probably looking for something to eat right now.

The rain had stopped and the moon shone clear, even if it was banded with cloud. Driving north into St. Martin’s Parish Vivian tried to concentrate on how much she’d grown to like this quiet place. Visions of Louis, dead in his car, pushed their way in but she moved them aside quickly and found that thinking about Spike’s face took her in a whole new direction.

If she hadn’t been distracted she’d have made sure he took the food with him.

Yeah, and who was she fooling? Seeing the leek pie in the refrigerator and the color-frosted sugar cookies shaped like Raggedy Ann and Andy baked by her mother for Wendy had lifted Vivian’s spirits and made her hands shake with anticipation. That was one convenient excuse to do what she wanted to do: see Spike again. She couldn’t wait to see him.

Up ahead she could already see the black and white sign in front of Devol’s, St. Martin’s First Gas Stop. Store Out Back. The Bayou Provisioners. You Want It, We Got It. We deliver anywhere. And Eats. On the other side of the board, Last replaced First.

Vivian’s courage fled. Driving from Rosebank to Spike’s place took about half an hour, which meant that instead of being, “only two in the morning,” it was now, “only two-thirty in the morning.”

Idiot woman. How did she think she was going to get to Spike without waking up Homer and Wendy? And what made her imagine for one moment that the object of her fantasies would be delighted if she dropped in on him when he probably had to be on duty early?

Apart from a single bulb at the corner of the building, the gas station lights were off. The store, set far back from the road, was also in darkness and she couldn’t see the house which she thought was closer to the bayou.

Spike’s Ford sedan, complete with insignia on the trunk and front doors, stood beneath the gas station light. Pretty good deterrent to troublemakers.

Vivian pulled her van in, considered for a moment whether she had the courage to walk boldly to the house and leave the food on the gallery—with a note on top—and decided she certainly did.

If the striped moon weren’t still casting some light, it would be difficult to see without a flashlight and she’d run the risk of disturbing someone.

The only sounds were of rustling leaves and buggy nightlife with voices way too big for their size.

Once past the gas station and beside the store, Vivian saw the dark outline of Spike’s house. Bigger than she’d expected, it stood on substantial stilts. The gallery had to be on the other side, facing the bayou. The part of the building she approached probably contained the bedrooms.

A little jumpy, she hurried around the house, skirting a light-colored van as she went and, sure enough, two wooden chairs glowed white on a screened gallery—between them stood a miniature version. Wendy’s. Vivian swallowed. Intruding here without an invitation was a dumb idea.

The dishes she’d brought were stacked in a plastic crate with wire handles. A picnic table sat out front of the gallery. She placed the crate there and backed away, wiping her hands on the legs of her jeans.

Oh sure, that would be there in the morning.

Animals around here were too well-mannered to eat every scrap and spread dishes and debris in all direction. Then there were birds. Like the crows that had hung out around Louis’s body, diving in for pieces of his hamburger and fries. She couldn’t expect to forget too easily.

She stared at the back of the house again. The complete lack of lights surprised her, but it could also prove convenient.

Hiking the crate from the table, she hunched over and approached the steps to the gallery and door. On the balls of her sneaker-shod feet, she climbed the wooden stairs, unnerved by a sensation that she ought to check behind her. She wasn’t easily frightened, or not usually.

On the gallery, against the split log wall and right by the door, Vivian eased her burden down once more. She’d forgotten to write a note but he’d know where the food was from.

”Don’t move.”

The whispered order might as well have been shouted. Vivian stumbled and landed on her knees. A light snapped on, a light with a blinding beam that settled over her like a stage spot.

“You drove here alone? You walked around out here in the dark alone?”

“I’m not twelve.”

He looked skyward. “There’s a murderer on the loose around here. And in case you’ve forgotten he killed at Rosebank—right at your home—and you don’t know what he came for. Only to kill Louis Martin? I doubt it. Could be he wanted something in the briefcase and that was it. We don’t know, though. Could be he wanted to get at you.” He held a gun against his thigh. “Didn’t anyone stop you when you were leaving? No, obviously they didn’t. Damn Bonine’s sloppy hide.”

She shivered and crossed her arms under her breasts.

“Goddammit!” Spike turned down the beam and hurried to her on silent feet. He stuffed the gun into the waist of the jeans that were all he wore and hauled her up with one hand. He dropped his voice. “What do you think you’re doing? Why? Why would you do something as stupid as creeping up on my house in the early hours of the morning? Damn it, Vivian, I’m…You could have been killed.”

When she could moisten her mouth enough to speak, she said, “You didn’t have dinner. I decided to drop the food by for you to share with your family.”

“Keep your voice down, I won’t have Wendy scared for nothing.” With that he bundled her down the steps to the warm, damp grass and away from the house.

For nothing. He was right, but she still felt bad to hear him refer to her that way. “I’m really sorry,” she said in a soft voice. “I stayed up because I knew I wasn’t going to sleep. To be honest, I didn’t think it through before I got in the van. Forgive me, please. I’ll go now so don’t give this another thought. I am sorry I woke you up.”

“Ah hell,” he said and released her arm. “Nothing’s simple, know that?”

“Yes.”

Spike recognized this as proof that there was no way he could let her know how he really felt, not now and maybe never. His life wouldn’t mix with any woman’s. He touched her face and she recoiled. “Oh great,” he said. “I frightened you. I frightened you. That makes me feel like hell.”

“No, no, don’t. You were only guarding your family and property. I put you on alert and a man like you goes on autopilot then, you have to. You thought I was…I’m an intruder.” She gave a short laugh. “I’m not doing too well with the law, am I?”

If he argued with her, he’d get himself in deeper water. “It’s too warm,” he told her. “Feel like something cold to drink?”

“We’d wake someone up. Thanks anyway.”

“No, in the store. No one will hear us there.”

A woman could put some spin on a comment like that. Unfortunately he was simply trying to recover balance for both of them by being polite and pretending he was already over her mistake.

“C’mon, Vivian, don’t make me suffer because I was an ass. Let me try to make it right so I can quit kicking myself.”

She looked at the shadows that were his face, and the unreadable gleam in his eyes, and smiled. “I can’t believe what I did.” She clapped her hands to her cheeks and shuddered.

“Come with me,” Spike said, “Gimme a break, okay? I want a cold drink and I want you with me while I have it. And we need to get some things straight between us—or I think so.”

She thought so, too, but didn’t pretend to herself that she’d like the result. “If you’re sure you want to do that, I am, too.”

Spike was more than sure he wanted to snatch at least this opportunity to be alone with Vivian. He was long past the age of buying a girl a soda and expecting nothing more than conversation and his own sexual frustration.

It would have to do.

Homer kept a spare key in one of the pots of flowers that hung from the eaves all around the store. This was one time when the idea didn’t irritate Spike.

He opened up and put a hand at Vivian’s waist to usher her inside.

“Oh,” she said in a small voice while she backed up against his hand. “It feels strange in here. You aren’t supposed to be inside stores when they’re closed.”

It didn’t feel out of place to slide his hand around her and splay his fingers to span her ribs. She stood so close he felt the warmth of her body.

“I didn’t know your shop was so big,” she said and her voice sounded real small. “Why do all the freestanding displays look weird just because there isn’t much light? They aren’t scary in daylight.”

He didn’t think what he was doing until his mouth touched her hair. He whispered in her ear, “Things we aren’t used to. The ordinary becomes mysterious when the context is out of whack.” They stood still like that, he with his hand at her side and his mouth close to her ear—and the sensation of her bare arm against his chest, Vivian soft and angling her head to bring her face closer to his.

Spike needed his legendary willpower to stop him from kissing her ear, her cheek, and turning her in his arms, and letting things go wherever they might.

Her white tank top didn’t reach her waist and the skin he touched there felt forbidden—and wonderful.

A deep breath expanded her chest and she walked away from him into the store. For an instant he felt cold at the loss of her, but he gathered his wits quickly enough and followed inside, closing and locking the door behind him. Wendy slept deeply and Homer had a history of being hard to rouse. The chances that he and Vivian would be interrupted were more than remote.

Spike hadn’t inherited Homer’s tendency to slip easily into oblivion. He slept only a fraction beneath consciousness and awoke with eyes wide open as if he’d been alert all the time. That was usually a good thing but forgetting he’d pointed a gun at Vivian tonight wouldn’t happen anytime soon.

“A person could do all their grocery shopping in here,” she said, her eyes evidently adjusted to the gloom. “That’s great. I bet you do a great business.”

“Fair. The big grocery stores are our competition but there isn’t one of those too close. The business with the folks who live along the bayou is a plus. So are the houseboats. The sandwich and ice cream bar is a little gold mine. Hey, c’mon and sit down.”

Each time Spike got close to her, Vivian struggled against touching him. His torso shone slightly in the semidarkness and she saw that the hair on his chest was surprisingly dark. Muscular and hard, what she could see of his body made her feel cheated out of what she couldn’t see. He walked away on bare feet.

Did he sleep naked?

Did he leap up and into a pair of jeans—and nothing else—if he had to? His hand at her side, where he had gripped her naked skin, had excited her almost as if he’d pressed between her legs. The flare of sensation she’d felt had given her an instant’s fear that she would disgrace herself by climaxing right then, standing beside him. She had responded to men before, but not like this.

He stood beside a shiny wooden table with two chairs, one of about five tables of various shapes and sizes. She sat in the chair he pulled out for her and looked up at him where he stood over her.

So serious. So many questions in eyes gone to navy-blue in the surreal cast of light. “What do you like?” he asked, leaving her and going to a refrigerated case. “We carry about everything.”

“What’s in those glasses? The pink stuff.”

“Strawberry Smush. My dad’s specialty. Started out as something he made for Wendy, then he tried a few in here and they’re popular. Like to taste one?”

“Yes, please,” she said and smiled at the way he slung bottled water between his fingers and held the pink thing in the same hand while he got napkins for both of them, and a spoon for Vivian.

When he put everything on the table, she giggled. “Do you feel like you’re in the Gingerbread House?”

“No…Yes, tonight I feel like that,” he said. “Left alone with the goodies.”

He must mean the food and drinks. No, he didn’t, he didn’t do subtlety too well, but he was letting her know he liked being here with her.

Chapter 8

Spike sat down beside Vivian and unscrewed the cap from his water. With every move he felt self-conscious. He felt her eyes on him, and he’d have to be dead not to know there was a good-size spark between them just waiting to be ignited.

Neither of them said a word until Spike couldn’t stand it anymore and asked, “How about a sandwich?”

Vivian caught up her spoon and dipped it into the Smush, a concoction that resembled a strawberry mousse. She let that spoonful dissolve, almost with a popping sensation, in her mouth. “Can I have a rain check on the sandwich until after I finish this? Maybe I’ll be hungrier for one then. This pops in your mouth. Like it’s carbonated.”

“Made with 7-Up. The sandwich is yours anytime you want it. Just got in a fresh supply of boudin rouge—best sausage in the world and not available on every street corner.”

Vivian giggled and wrinkled her nose as the next spoonful of Strawberry Smush went down. Then she put her spoon in the saucer beneath the thick, dimple-glass parfait glass and anchored her hands between her knees.

Spike swallowed more water and waited.

“I don’t know what came over me this evening,” Vivian said. “This morning. Unless it was you.”

He wiped any hint of a smile from his face. “I can be an overbearing man…Why would you come here because I’m overbearing? Not that you said that was it, only I do know about my faults and—”

“You’re right. You can be overbearing but only when you think it’s for the best. At least, that’s how I see it so far. You have to think I’ve lost my mind. Apart from last night, we’ve met maybe half a dozen times and drunk a cup of coffee together—seems like I’m takin’ a lot for granted.”

“Nine times and I saw you the last time you visited your uncle at Rosebank and you went into Toussaint—three times,” he told her. “Had coffee together twice and walked along the bayou when I met you comin’ out of church that Sunday. I liked that. Only thing wrong was that I wanted to hold your hand and I couldn’t. Then I wanted to kiss you, and I sure as hell couldn’t.”

“You could have tried,” she said and turned her face away, amazed at her own boldness.

Spike got a fresh taste of arousal. At this rate he’d have a permanent zipper mark on his Pride of the South. He grinned at his own little joke, but the pressure didn’t ease. They might as well be locked in a lovers’ embrace for the connection he felt to her—maybe not quite that, but just thinking about it was its own prize.

“You are gorgeous, y’know,” Vivian said, turning to face him again. “Look at you.” She looked at him and he found he was short of breath. No woman had ever looked at him quite that way, studying his face minutely, spending extra time on his mouth until she leaned a little closer and her own lips parted. “And I like you, that’s a good reason to come see you.”

“You’re embarrassing me,” he told her. “But don’t let that stop you.”

She smiled, a quirky smile, and inclined her head to take in his body. He was grateful he remained what Madge Pollard, Cyrus’s bright-eyed assistant, called lean and mean—only with enough bulk to make a girl weak at the knees. “Do you lift weights?” Vivian asked. “Live on some sort of chemicals with Gatorade chasers? I don’t think chests just come like that.”

He controlled an urge to sweep her on top of the table and sit with his chair pushed back, making sure he hadn’t missed anything about her—or as little as he could do that with her clothes on. “I do a lot of physical work,” he told her and shrugged. “And I like to run. Oh, what the hell, I might as well fess up to it all. We’ve got an old Nautilus at the station and I love that thing.”

“Worth every second,” she said, her voice somewhat lower. She pointed an index finger at him, made circles with it, looked into his eyes, back at his chest, and slowly set her fingertip on one of his pecs. Vivian poked, quite definitely poked, and made an “ooh” shape with her mouth. “You’ve been eating your spinach.”

He sent up thanks that she managed to keep things light enough to stop him from inviting her to join him anywhere, as long as he was inside her.

“Your face got to me the first time I saw it,” Spike said, and Vivian saw a wicked glitter in his eyes. So this was to be tit for tat. “You’ve got cheekbones that don’t quit and your eyes aren’t just green, they’re green-green and when you close them, you’ve got more black eyelashes than one woman should have. They curve against your face, and flicker because you’re always thinking about something. And your skin is so white. Black hair and white skin. Is your skin the same all over?”

Her eyes flashed at him. “That’s a secret.”

“I like secrets. They turn me on. Sometimes I can’t quit until I find them out.”

Her left hand rested on the table and he covered it with his right. She was cool, almost too cool. Their eyes met and she smiled at him, a conspiratorial smile. Spike turned up the corners of his mouth and made himself keep on looking at her, but something had changed in him and he couldn’t afford that change. He wasn’t going to be able to put Vivian Patin out of his mind easily. At this moment he doubted he would ever forget the way she looked at him now.

He could not have a woman in his life—other than casually. He already knew it didn’t work. Vivian wasn’t the kind of woman a man tried to get close to—with no strings attached.

She turned her hand over beneath his so that their palms touched and their fingertips rested together. He played back and forth, softly, and saw her shiver again but not, he thought, out of fear or because she was cold—not this time.

“This may not be the best timing,” he said, “but what happened with the fire your father died in?”

She nodded and bent low enough over their joined hands to ensure her face wasn’t visible. “Chez Charlotte—that was my parents’ restaurant. Burned to the ground. The fire started in the kitchens and that’s where my father was found.”

Spike knew he must listen quietly and not try to prompt her with his own questions.

She kept her face down but curled her fingers into his palm and made light rubbing motions that tickled vaguely. “My dad was a calm man—unless he lost his temper, and he did do that regularly. But he was alone there. Something I don’t get, and neither does Mama. All alone and cooking. They say he must have been and that he probably set the stove on fire.”

Spike picked up her hand and held it between both of his. Her fingers were long but disappeared inside his own. “What did the local experts decide?”

“Accident,” she said.

“You don’t sound as if you believe that.”

“No. And less now with Louis’s death. Poor man. We have to find what was taken from his briefcase. He became marked by it, whatever it is, I’m sure of that.”

”We,” Spike felt mean but it had to be said. “This is a job for the professionals, Vivian. I won’t be one of them, you already know that. And Errol Bonine and his squad won’t allow you to interfere. They’ll do the askin’ and tell you no more than they have to.”

“He—Bonine asked me questions for two hours.”

“I know. I was in the house, remember? What kind of questions did he ask?” He shouldn’t interfere but didn’t feel any remorse.

“Dumb questions. And the same ones over and over—when he wasn’t resting his eyes. Where was I from? Why would I want to live at Rosebank? Was I in some sort of trouble in New Orleans? Why aren’t I married? Was I ever married? Don’t I like men?”

“Ass,” Spike said with feeling. How Errol had risen as far as he had would always be a mystery—maybe. “Don’t you worry about him. He’s doing what he thinks he’s supposed to do, only he’s forgotten most of what that is. You just keep calm and don’t let him rile you.”

Vivian decided that Deputy Sheriff Spike Devol didn’t know exactly what, or who, he was dealing with yet. He’d learn in time. If Vivian had her way, he’d learn everything there was to learn about her. She took a forgotten breath and felt a wash of hopelessness. Spike might be interested in an affair, a short, hot affair, but nothing more unless she was mistaken. That wouldn’t be enough for her—tantalizing as it seemed.

“What kind of record does Detective Bonine have?” she asked. “For solving crimes, I mean?”

“Lousy, but that doesn’t seem to cramp his style. I’m talking out of school but I’d say the detective lives very well for what I know he earns and the possibility is that not solving some cases pays well. I don’t know if your case falls into that category, but don’t expect any speedy answers. It’s likely to drag on, then fade away.”

“I’ve got to find the connection between my father’s death and what happened yesterday. Uncle Guy only changed his will almost literally on his deathbed. Dad died a few weeks after Uncle Guy. The insurance wasn’t nearly enough and my mother took a terrible financial hit. And that was on top of being brokenhearted over Dad’s death.”

“Stinking luck,” Spike said.

“As things stand we don’t have any choice but to make Rosebank work. There’s enough money to creep along for a while and nothing more. We can’t really continue with the renovations until we’re more solvent again. We have to move so slowly when we need to go fast.”

She drummed her fingers and he wondered if she was deciding whether to go on.

“In Uncle Guy’s will there was a strange reference to having faith, that he had taken care of all eventualities and all the Patins would have to do was use their minds if their eyes were to see the truth.”

She had all of Spike’s attention.

“Louis said he was bringing good news. What would you make out of that?”

Careful. “I’d probably make some of the same guesses you’re making. But I wouldn’t get in the way of the law.”

Her determined concentration on the table didn’t fool him. The lady could become hard to handle because she wouldn’t take directions easily unless they made a lot of sense to her.

“The connection has to be found.” She sounded stubborn.

“If there is one.” He slid his rump forward in his chair and carried her fingertips to his mouth. “Heed what I say and don’t meddle. Your life is too important to risk. I won’t let you lose it over money.”

Her startled eyes rose to his face.

Absently, Spike kissed the very tips of her fingers, ran his tongue across them. Vivian said, “I like you doing that. It makes me dizzy.”

“Actually this is a bad idea,” he said, speaking deliberately as if he were discussing the boudin rouge, only with less enthusiasm.

“Is it?”

She was an enigma, and irresistible. His voice might sound cool but what he felt was anything but cool. He’d better back off.

“How about you?” she asked. “Tell me something about you and what you want.”

“I want a better life for Wendy,” he said and Vivian wouldn’t allow herself to remark that he was holding her hand too tightly. “She’s fine now, but she’ll need more and I’ll give it to her. She’s always going to feel loved and it’ll never mean anything to her that her mother…left. Wendy will go to college. She’ll get whatever opportunities it takes to get her to her full potential.”

“I know you’ll make sure of that.”

The flashlight on the floor cast uplights over his face. His gleaming eyes held a faraway expression.

“And you?” she asked. “What do you want for yourself?”

He looked at her and there was nothing faraway about him now. Spike studied only her face and for so long Vivian could scarcely bear the wait. Finally the corners of his mouth tipped up and he said, “I want you. It’s wrong for me to say it, but it’s true. Already I feel I’ve known you forever and I want to know you better. But it couldn’t work out. Even if you’d have me, we’d have to sneak around to be together.”

“Because you’re afraid I’d hurt you, or Wendy. It’s Wendy you worry about most and I like you for that. But are you really thinking about the whole picture, or just about sex?”

His eyes never left her face and he didn’t flinch. “I need that, too. I want that, too. But I’d settle for kissing you—for now. Just to see how we like it. You probably wouldn’t want that when I have nothing else to offer you.”

Vivian looked at their joined hands and inched them toward her. He stopped her, kissed her palm, pressed it against his neck and leaned slowly closer.

She heard his breathing, focused on the distinct contours of his mouth. He stopped moving toward her and she almost panicked at the thought that he might not kiss her.

His eyes closed. His lips found hers in a soft, careful kiss. She heard their mouths part, but almost at once he drew the tip of his tongue across her lips and nipped lightly. They shifted their faces, noses bumping gently. Vivian felt his features, the beard stubble, feathered her fingers over his brows, his closed eyes.

Spike maneuvered her to face him, pulled her forward until her knees were between his thighs. He held her head and stroked the corners of her mouth. Vivian pressed her mouth into his, passed her tongue over the smooth insides while his thumbs at the corners of her lips, rubbing, aroused her.

He heard her pant, felt her tongue meet his and shifted on the chair. The little white tank top had wriggled up and when he sought her waist he found a bared midriff. With each touch, she moaned, and he moaned with her. He found the indentation in her spine, between her hips, slid a hand beneath her jeans and held her smooth bottom, let his fingers graze the dip between the cheeks.

And Vivian rubbed him, his neck and shoulders, his sides, across his chest. She pinched his flat nipples and he thought he’d lose the last vestige of his control. Abandoning his mouth for his chest, she trailed her tongue over his skin, gradually lowered her head and sucked a dozen places on his belly.

Vivian didn’t want to think about anything but the way he felt, and the way she felt with him. His abdomen, tight and inflexible, tasted salty. The sensation that came when he slipped her tank top from one shoulder stopped her breath. He bent over and kissed her there. His hands passed from her ribs to the sides of her breasts. And she burned, her nipples, deep in her womb, between her legs where flesh turned hard and erogenous. It swelled, throbbed.

In one swift motion, Spike pulled her from her chair and astride his thighs and, as she’d known must happen, he stopped kissing her. He held her in strong arms, such strong arms she couldn’t catch her breath.

Beneath her, she felt his erection. He wanted her as much as she wanted him. He pushed the distended ridge behind his zipper against her center. “Spike?”

“This is going to sound crazy,” he said against her face, rocking her, dipping his tongue rapidly into her mouth and, always, breathing like a suffocating man. “I want you so bad it hurts.”

“I want you,” she told him. It was too late for pride.

“Vivian, I don’t just want sex with you.” He gave a short laugh. “Not that I don’t need that enough to make me want to take you no matter what the cost might be. But if I can’t have all of you, all the time, I’m not going to do something that’ll mean you’ll walk the other way if you see me coming.”

She pushed a hand between them and massaged the hard length of him.

Spike captured her wrist. For moments he closed her hand even harder over him and let his head drop back.

Just as quickly, he pulled her hand from him.

“I’d never walk away from you,” she said, leaning on him, pressing her face into his shoulder. “Not unless you told me to.”

They came together in a frenzied burst. He kissed her wildly and didn’t confine himself to her mouth. Rocking her on top of his distended penis, he pulled her top above her breasts, held his tongue between his teeth while he narrowed his eyes to look at her. Beads of sweat broke out on his brow and upper lip.

Vivian couldn’t stand waiting. She thrust herself toward him and he buried his face between her breasts. His mouth, settling over a nipple, pulled a cry from her and she moved him to the other breast. She put her feet on the floor either side of him and stood, pushing his head back while she tried to get closer and closer.

Spike unzipped her jeans and slid his fingers inside her panties. Her hips jerked against him. He’d just about lost it all. Even knowing he should stop, not because he didn’t want her but because common sense told him to, he still couldn’t bring himself to leave her on the brink.

Seconds passed in silence while he licked her breasts, flicked the tip of his tongue over her nipples—and got serious about his finger action. He longed to kiss her down there and finish the job with his mouth. Even if he’d decided to go for it, Vivian let him know it was too late. She curved forward over him, wrapped her arms around his head and held him hard against her, and came in a burst of convulsive thrusts.

Already she tore at his zipper. Why did this have to be a decision? he wondered. He needed her now. They needed each other. “Not now, cher,” he murmured, holding her hand away. He had to hold on, get through this. “Not here.”

“I like it here.”

So did he, as long as she was with him.

“Spike, I’ll never, never turn away from you.”

“I’d rather not have to remind you of that promise,” he said, and stood up, moving her to his side and zipping his pants. Blood pounded in his head, and elsewhere. He willed his drive for sex to calm down. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and we’ll become what? Appropriate? I’m following you home to make sure you get safely inside.”

Chapter 9

“The only identifiable prints on the phone are yours. And that jackass Devol’s, of course. But since I figure he’d have fixed the thing if he was worried about it, I’m reckonin’ he’s probably clean, him.”

Vivian swallowed several times but her mouth remained dry. Detective Bonine had set himself up in Uncle Guy’s old office in the south wing, apparently oblivious to the dust that layered everything and swirled in a slice of sunlight through velvet-draped windows. He shifted papers on the rosewood desk, sending more murky clouds into the air, and didn’t even sneeze.

Vivian sneezed.

So did Gary Legrain, whose very tall body all but reclined in an orange velvet chair with skeins of bright beads knotted on each leg.

She met his gray eyes but he showed no emotion. However, from the moment he’d arrived before nine that morning, she’d liked him and been grateful he was at Rosebank. He’d offered, without pressure, to act as Charlotte and Vivian’s attorney if they wanted him, at least until they decided what to do about permanent representation. They assured him they wanted and needed him.

“Did you read my clients their rights last night?” Legrain asked in his rumbly voice.

Bonine slammed a bronze pineapple paperweight on top of a file. “I’ve told them they aren’t suspects.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“Well, you got the answer I decided to give you,” Bo-nine said. “You still aren’t a suspect, Ms. Patin, but I’d like to read you your rights just the same. Better for both of us.” He whipped out a card and recited the Miranda in a rapid mono-tone as if he saw nothing wrong with having taken advantage the previous evening.

“You recordin’ this?” Legrain asked innocently, scanning jammed bookcases at the same time.

Bonine’s face had turned its signature shade of puce. The shaft of sun lighted a muzzy reddish halo around his grizzled head and Vivian got a fleeting vision of horns on top. Last night and early this formerly wonderful morning had not left her in the mood for sleep. Now she was exhausted and the horned mirage of Bo-nine made her giggle before wisdom clicked on.

“You’re bein’ warned, you,” Bonine said. “There’s nothin’ funny about the situation here, or your part in it, Ms. Patin. You may not find me, or what could happen to you so funny in a while.”

“Intimidating witnesses—”

“Shut your mouth, Legrain,” Bonine said and Vivian didn’t need someone else to warn her the man was melting down. “Much more out of you and I’ll have you removed.”

“On what grounds?” Legrain asked in a reasonable voice which wasn’t likely to calm Bonine. “Where’s the recorder?”

“On the grounds that you’re a pain in the ass.” Bonine got up and fussed around in boxes he’d had brought in until he produced the necessary recording equipment and switched it on. He gave his name, Vivian’s, and the time and date in bored tones then added Gary Legrain’s presence as an afterthought. “You gonna let me get on with my business now?” he asked.

Legrain levered himself out of his chair and commenced to take long, slow strides around the room. He made the mistake of pulling one of the orange velvet drapes aside to get a better view of the courtyard and stables. Vivian lost count of the number of times he sneezed amid clouds of pungent dust.

“Are you done interruptin’ this interrogation?” Bo-nine asked when the sneezing stopped. He went on without waiting for a reply, “Ms. Patin, isn’t it true that you and your mama got money troubles?”

Vivian’s temper rose. She looked at her lawyer but he continued his round of the room and didn’t seem interested in the question. “We do,” she said. Honesty paid in the end—or mostly it did—even if she was caught off balance by the question.

Gary Legrain stopped his pacing and sat on the corner of the desk—on the same side as Bonine. Vivian figured he had to be close to seven feet tall and he looked in good shape. He wore his dishwater-blond hair short and was more tanned than any other lawyer she remembered. He appeared to stare into the distance, much to the detective’s ire.

“You comfy enough, Legrain?” Bonine asked. “You through sneezin’ and tryin’ to mess with my train of thought, you?”

“You’ve got the floor,” Legrain said.

“So here you are with this place. It needs to be condemned or repaired—”

“It does not need to be condemned,” Vivian told him, even though she knew she was being baited.

“As I was sayin’,” Bonine continued, “you got a notion to do this place up and run some sort of rooming house.”

Either he was trying to make her angry or he was operating with minus gray cells. Neither possibility encouraged Vivian. She didn’t need a mean-spirited troublemaker or a mental midget with power.

“A hotel,” she told him, turning up the corners of her mouth. “My parents were in the restaurant business and I’ve been in hotel management for—”

“I didn’t ask for a life history,” Bonine said. “I know all that. You wanna open a hotel then.” A sneer didn’t improve the arrangement of his belligerent features.

“We’ll start small,” she said, as if she hadn’t picked up on his attitude. “A few rooms and a restaurant.”

Bonine pushed back in his chair and hauled his feet onto the desk. “This whole place needs work.”

“Don’t I know it?” Vivian actually enjoyed hiding behind her innocent eyes.

“You got the money?”

Legrain said, “Where are you going with this?”

“You’ll see, you,” the detective said. “You got the money, Ms. Patin?”

She shook her head and managed to find bubbles of tears.

“Yeah,” Bonine said with satisfaction. “I’d say you were in a big bind. How long have you known Devol?”

“Are you going to make some connections anytime soon, Detective?” Legrain’s profile had turned hard. He narrowed his eyes.

Bonine ignored him. “How long?”

“We met a couple of years back, maybe longer,” Vivian said. “We used to talk whenever I was here visiting my uncle.” And this morning we did more than talk.

“We’ll come back to that. You told me Louis Martin was bringin’ good news. You told me what he said, but I don’t necessarily read it the way you did. Maybe it was bad news. Perhaps there was something in the briefcase you didn’t want anyone to see—some question about the ownership of Rosebank, maybe. Did he threaten you, want money or something?”

“The detective is way out of line,” Legrain said. He snapped out his words and stood up. “I suggest you back off and rethink how you want to pursue this, Bonine.”

“Save it for the prosecutor, Legrain. You don’t get to make suggestions to me. Devol would do anything to get back at me for whatever he’s decided I’ve done to him. He’d be on the front line to help someone make a fool of me.” He creaked sideways in the chair to peer at the recorder. “Will you look at that? Damn cheap equipment quit.” One heavy finger plunked down on a button and Vivian realized he was turning it on, not off. When had it stopped recording?

Confused, she lost her battle to keep on seeming unfazed. “Spike had nothing to do with any of this. He didn’t know you’d be the one to come.”

“He knew,” Bonine declared.

“Are you suggesting Devol’s an accessory?” Legrain asked. “If so, that’s a pretty flamboyant accusation.”

Bonine gave a smile that flared his nostrils. “I’m not suggestin’ anythin’, me. Just doin’ my job.”

“Apparently the priest saw—”

“What he does or doesn’t say he saw is between him and me at this point. I’m an analytical man, me. Time of death doesn’t have to mean a thing in a case like this.”

Tapping at the door startled Vivian. Legrain raised his eyebrows. Bonine’s frown wiped out his eyelids.

Vivian said, “Come in.”

Madge Pollard, Cyrus’s right hand, she who kept St. Cécil’s—and Cyrus—running, trotted into the room with four cups on a tray, and a guileless smile on her lips. “Break time,” she said, or just about sang. “From what Cyrus, and now Charlotte have told me, not one of you is taking care of yourself. How will you think your way through this tragedy if you don’t give your brains a good slap now and then.”

Bonine was exercising male viewing rights. Madge’s cream shirt and tan pants were demure enough, but she had the kind of figure that would turn a Kevlar jumpsuit into sexy gear.

“Put it there,” Bonine said, referring to the tray and pointing at the desk. He actually tilted his head to watch Madge do as he asked.

“Cream and sugar?” Madge asked. “I’ll be mother.”

Vivian clamped her lips together. Nothing Madge did would surprise her, but the ditzy brunette act could become a party piece.

“Cream, no sugar, please,” Legrain said and his interested grin let Vivian know he hadn’t missed Madge’s charms, either.

Black curly hair, chin length, bounced with each move of Madge’s head and the deep intelligence in her dark eyes made them even more appealing. Vivian didn’t think an interruption by Gil the gardener would have been as well received.

Once the men held their coffee, Madge handed a cup to Vivian and picked up one for herself. “We’ve got tea.” She smiled all around. “Hot tea. Cools you down. Isn’t that what we say, Vivian? Stops you from feeling wiggly.” Another innocent grin. “I hate it when the heat makes you wiggly, don’t you?”

Affirmative mumbles followed, and the clearing of throats, and a certain gleam in eyes that probably envisioned Madge feeling “wiggly.”

Vivian stared at Madge in disbelief. Who would have expected someone else to spout Mama’s tea and body temperature wisdom?

Madge had burst into the room to be a Good Samaritan and try to spring Vivian, but Madge was also having a great time with her act.

“I heard that about hot tea,” Bonine said. He’d gotten up. “I need coffee for that brain slap you talked about. Very apt. But I’ll remember to try the tea later.”

What was she, Vivian wondered, yesterday’s grits? Her own appeal had been remarked on more than a time or two, yet Bonine treated her like a cottonmouth. Spike, he was the reason. Bonine really hated him. She thought of the detective’s earlier insinuations and pressed a hand into her jumpy stomach. It would be better for Spike Devol if he kept his distance from her—not that she expected Bonine to give up the notion that his old enemy had masterminded a potential coup, or assisted the mastermind. Things like this didn’t happen to Vivian Patin.

“I don’t think there’s a need to continue the discussion now, do you?” Gary Legrain said to Bonine, who blinked a few times and gave a sharp shake of his head.

Slap it some more. Vivian had an irreverent vision of the detective’s brain ricocheting inside his skull.

Madge inhaled sharply, audibly, and said, “Oh, ya, ya, I was so taken with the company I forgot to remind you of your appointment this afternoon, Vivian. Your mama asked me to.”

Appointment? “Thank you.” Vivian felt herself turning red. She wasn’t a comfortable liar.

“I told you to be available at all times,” Bonine said. “I told you that early this mornin’.”

Madge put her arm beneath Vivian’s. “Some appointments can’t be ignored, can they?” She smiled encouragement.

“What kind of appointment?” Bonine asked. “Who are you seeing—Devol?”

“No,” Vivian said.

Instead of concentrating on catching a killer, Bonine had turned Louis’s death into a reason for a vendetta. Gary Legrain’s pinched expression could mean he was thinking the same thing. Since he was taking Louis’s death hard, that wouldn’t be a pleasing idea.

Madge hung on her arm. “Now, Detective, you know there are some things a girl can’t discuss around men.”

Vivian wanted some of whatever Madge had swallowed before coming into the office.

Legrain actually seemed a bit flustered but Bonine’s curiosity made his head jerk forward and his mustache twitch.

He opened his mouth to speak but Madge cut him off. “Private things,” she said, her voice conspiratorial. “Do you know Reb Girard?”

“The lady doc in Toussaint?”

“Uh-huh. The very one. I understand she’s real helpful in delicate times. She’s guided a lot of women through similar situations. And, of course, she’s a wonderful doctor. I’ve always thought women doctors were better at some things. They have smaller hands.”

Vivian looked at Madge aghast.

Chapter 10

“Hey there, Cyrus.” Spike let the bubble-gum pink door to All Tarted Up, Flakiest Pastry in Town, close with enough of a bang to set the bell to jangling. “Just thought of a way to increase business, Jilly. Hold a contest to rename the bakery. Offer a good prize to the winning entry, like all the day-old bread you can carry.”

Jilly Gable and her brother Joe owned the bakery and café. They’d come up with the current name to “make the place more sexy,” poker-faced Jilly told anyone who asked.

“Sure,” she said from behind a counter. “Not much of a prize when everything gets sold the day it’s made, though. Maybe we could offer a tour of the Sheriff’s office instead. That should take five minutes. And you could throw in some of that mud you call coffee.”

Cyrus watched the two of them idly. For a while there it had seemed they might have something going, but whatever that was didn’t last long. They’d come out of it even stronger friends than they were before, though, which said a lot for their characters and made Cyrus feel good.

“Join me,” he said to Spike. “I had a nosy visitor a few hours ago. Our detective friend from last night. I’d decided the man didn’t do mornings but he fooled me.” Errol Bonine had turned up at the rectory at 8:30, to the consternation of Lil Dupre who didn’t take kindly to interruptions in her carefully crafted routine. Since Lil had moved into the housekeeper position, which she considered the most prized and important job around, Lil had turned from a whiner who did good work into a tyrant, who still did good work.

For Spike, mention of Cyrus being questioned again interfered with the good mood his encounter with Vivian had left behind.

“Go sit down,” Jilly said. “I’ll bring your coffee and a fresh one for Father. It’s comin’ up on lunchtime too so I’ll fix you something ahead of the rush.” Her startling hazel eyes made you take a second look every time. The eyes, the tawny skin and long, brown, blond-streaked hair.

She called to Samie Machin, the extra assistant who had been added in the past year since Joe Gable’s law practice had grown and made it impossible for him to help out at all. “Two extra specials for Father Cyrus and Spike, please Samie.”

Spike sat opposite Cyrus and said, “Ever feel like you’re waitin’ for the shit to hit the fan?”

Cyrus smiled faintly. “The way we’re feelin’ right now, you mean?”

“Yeah.” Spike tossed his hat on the seat of the chair beside him and ran a hand through his short hair. “So Errol dropped in at the rectory? Did you know him before last night?”

“Never set eyes on him. Looked him up. He was baptized at St. Cécil’s but he probably lives in Iberia now.”

Spike grunted. “I don’t see Errol Bonine as a churchgoing man.”

He realized his mistake before Cyrus said, “You being an expert on churchgoing men.”

Spike knew when to keep his mouth shut.

“He has pretty narrow interests,” Cyrus said. “Mostly you, then you and Vivian Patin. I had to be the one to talk about passing poor Louis Martin when I was leaving Rosebank earlier in the day. He seemed to have forgotten.”

If Errol didn’t get his act together this was going to be an unsolved crime. “But he talked about it once you raised the subject?” Spike said. “What theories does he have—if he told you?”

“He told me he didn’t think it made a whole lot of difference. In his words, ‘what happened, happened.’ The detective gets right to the point. He isn’t putting himself out to find every angle. Gives a whole new meanin’ to putting your trust in the Lord.”

Spike didn’t feel like laughing.

The shop bell rang again and kept on trembling. Doll Hibbs, who ran the Majestic Hotel, came in with Wazoo, their one permanent boarder, and Bill Green. Bill was Toussaint’s leading Realtor. He was Toussaint’s only Realtor.

Doll, whose moods were unpredictable, gave Spike an almost coy wave and said, “Good mornin’ to you, Father,” to Cyrus. Wazoo inclined her head at Spike but ignored Cyrus, and Bill Green joined the men while the two women claimed chairs at opposite ends of a table for eight near the windows.

“For a semi-wide spot in the road,” Bill said, “this place gets more than its share of trouble.” He raised his voice to say, “Hi, Jilly. Cup of coffee and one of those famous meat pies of yours, please.”

Fresh-faced Samie Machin hustled from the kitchen to put plates in front of Spike and Cyrus. The smell of fried onions caught Cyrus by surprise.

“Eat ’em and weep,” Jilly said, laughing. “We mixed cooked and uncooked to keep ’em crunchy. Jilly burgers. First time on the menu.”

“These are tortillas,” Cyrus said.

“You try saying Jilly quesadillas more’n a time or two.”

“I’ll stay with the meat pie,” Bill Green said, screwing up tearing eyes. “I deal with the public.”

“I don’t know how any of you can eat today,” Wazoo’s high voice cut across the café. “A man hardly cold in our own backyard. All that blood and cut-up flesh. I’d surely faint if a plate of meat was put in front of me.”

Cyrus’s mouth twitched. He laughed, grabbed his napkin and pretended to be coughing, then gave up and managed to subside into bursts of chuckles. Spike, with his back to the women, didn’t help a thing by rolling up his eyes in a parody of death.

“We’re gonna be sorry Guy Patin’s kin moved into Rosebank,” Doll said. Her sunny episodes had a habit of not staying around long. “See if I’m not right. Too bad that house isn’t a whole lot farther away. There’s talk about what happened there yesterday and none of it’s good.”

Spike turned sideways in his chair. Everything about Doll was unremarkable, except her gift for understatement and her mean spirit. Pale gray eyes, light brown hair—long, straight and secured at the nape with a rubber band—average height and weight.

“Generally there isn’t much good to say about murder,” Spike said. “Best not to listen to gossip though. Even better not to spread it.”

Bill said, “Amen,” and went to the counter to get his coffee and meat pie.

“It’s not gossip that it was those women’s lawyer got himself killed,” Doll said, sounding stubborn. “And that Vivian supposedly found him, or so she says.”

“How do you know…” Spike glanced into Wazoo’s smug face and shut his mouth.

Doll was undeterred. “Guy Patin was leavin’ the place to some sort of charity. We all knew that. So how come those women moved in and started changin’ things? Just maybe the lawyer—” she gave her attention to Jilly “—maybe he come to say they jumped the gun or some-thin’. Could be they just thought Rosebank was theirs, or wanted it to be, and the lawyer was bringin’ the will to prove they had no right.”

“Now, Doll,” Cyrus said in a more even voice than Spike could have mustered. “The dead lawyer didn’t represent Guy Patin as far as I know. Speculations can be dangerous.”

“Troublemaking can be dangerous, you mean,” Spike said under his breath.

“I don’t hold with speculatin’ myself,” Doll said. “I can’t reveal my sources but I trust ’em. You wouldn’t be wanting me to say anything about a certain someone, Spike Devol, but if you’ve got the sense you were born with you won’t get too close to mud. It rubs off.”

Four workmen in white overalls saved Spike from saying something he’d regret. The men took their time ordering food to go and talked loudly among themselves.

“What’s she suggesting?” Bill asked, keeping his voice down while leaning forward to shrug out of his light blue seersucker jacket and hook it over the back of his chair. “I’ve met both of the ladies from Rosebank. Very nice they are, too. The young one’s something to look at.” Bill’s tie was the next to go. He believed in wearing a suit to work every day but the temperature soared outside, and inside the air-conditioning couldn’t keep up with the heat from the kitchen.

“Good people, too,” Cyrus said, blessedly giving Spike a chance to think.

The workers filed out and Doll pointed at their retreating backs. “Working for that lovely Mrs. Susan Hurst,” she said. “Too bad those Patin women don’t have her money. They’d get their hotel put together a whole lot quicker. Have you ever heard such nonsense? A hotel in that fine old house?”

Doll paused for breath but she hadn’t finished. “Mrs. Hurst isn’t too pleased, I can tell you. She and her husband—and that beautiful daughter of hers, Olympia—they move in and call their home Serenity, only to have people come next door talkin’ about a restaurant, not just for hotel guests but for anyone who wanders in. And who will they get to stay there, that’s what I want to know. If folks want a comfortable, reliable place to stay, they know where to come.” She crossed her arms.

“Doll’s right, her,” Wazoo said. “I’m the one who knows, too. I live at the Majestic. And my customers tell me how at home they feel, too.”

Doll hissed for Wazoo to be quiet. The Hibbs were careful not to admit that they had a medium/palm, tarot and tea leaf reader in residence. Spike figured they were afraid some folks might not like the idea of staying in a hotel where what went bump in the night might not always be the head of a bed.

“I reckon it’s time I got on,” Spike said. He liked most things about small towns except the way some folks couldn’t mind their own business. “Is Madge at the rectory?”

Cyrus, apparently speechless over a simple question, was the last thing Spike expected. The man stared at him, then looked away. “Madge,” he said. “Oh, Madge. No, she had some errands to run. Said she didn’t know how long she’d be.”

Spike stood up but didn’t go anywhere. Reb Girard, Dr. Reb Girard, that was, had arrived with her apricot poodle, Gaston, under her arm. Curls of Reb’s red hair had worked free of the topknot she wore while she was at her surgery on Conch Street. Spike smiled at the sight of her. Marc Girard and Reb O’Brien had married just before last Christmas. Marc must be right for her, lucky devil. Happiness sparked in her very green eyes and six months pregnant looked wonderful on her.

“You can’t see this dog, of course, no one can,” she said to Jilly, “but forgive me for bringin’ Gaston in. It’s too hot to leave him in the car.”

Gaston decided to growl. He craned his neck to look around Reb’s arm and bare his teeth. His shiny brown eyes fixed on Wazoo.

Reb ordered lemonade and turned to smile at Cyrus and Spike. She nodded at Bill who looked at her with more appreciation than Cyrus liked to see. An ex-Marine, Bill was around forty and divorced—and lonely. He needed a woman in his life and, although he might be ordinary to look at, he kept himself fit and it showed. He had a nice home in a cottage behind the local book-shop, and a good business. He should be a good catch for someone nice who would be an anchor in his life.

“Sit down,” Spike told Reb. “Get a load off…just sit down and I’ll bring the lemonade. It’s too hot for a woman in your condition to be walking around. The extra weight is a stress. Your ankles will swell.” He’d looked at her slim feet beneath the long, loose cream shift she wore before a desire to disappear hit him. He couldn’t have said the things he just said, he couldn’t have.

Without a hint of either annoyance or amusement, Reb thanked him and took the seat he’d left. Jilly wasn’t as kind. She made her already big eyes huge, and her eyebrows all but disappeared into her hair. Cyrus folded and refolded his napkin and didn’t look at anyone.

“Reb,” Spike said, “that sounded—”

“Hush,” she told him, reaching out to take his hand and give it a squeeze. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I wouldn’t change a thing about you. Silver tongues are a dime a dozen. I understand there’s someone else who’s pretty impressed with you, too.”

He swallowed air. Reb had to be talking about Vivian and there was nothing to talk about. Okay, so there was something to talk about after last night but he and Vivian were the only ones who knew about that.

“Follow your heart,” Reb said. “You deserve someone special and this is your big chance.” She pulled him down until she could speak into his ear. “I’ll do everything I can to help, but some things are up to you. Don’t wait. Women need to feel right about these things.”

What exactly was she talking about? Spike said, “Yeah, well…I’ll get on now.”

Gaston growled again and Wazoo let out a little scream. When she had everyone’s attention, she pointed a long finger, coated with the same powdered sugar that somehow clung to her eyelashes, frosted her black hair and tinted her normally sallow face white. “He’s lookin’ at me, him,” she said of Gaston. The sugar had come from the donut she held in her other hand. “He’s tryin’ to say how he wants somethin’ from me.”

“Probably your donut,” Jilly said without any expression at all and cracked up her clientele. “Hello, Thea,” she said to a gray-haired woman who came in and joined Doll and Wazoo. Thea cleaned and helped out around Rosebank.

Cyrus couldn’t find it in him to be amused anymore. Madge might think him oblivious to a lot of things but she was wrong. Just because he didn’t always say a whole lot didn’t mean he missed much. All the banter in the world wouldn’t cover up the growing dread he felt. Unrest stirred the air, the kind of unrest he’d had the misfortune to feel before in this town.

“You okay?” Spike murmured to him.

“Are you?”

Spike shook his head slightly.

They’d been through bad times in the past and had barely managed to deal with the murderer of four women and a man without even more loss of life. Over a year had passed since the crimes were solved and Cyrus had become complacent about peace in Toussaint. He met Spike’s gaze again and something there suggested their thoughts weren’t so different.

After Detective Bonine left the rectory, Madge had grilled Cyrus on what had been said, then she’d insisted on going to Rosebank to see if she could help Charlotte and Vivian. There could still be danger at that house. He didn’t worry so much about Madge driving deserted roads now that she had an almost new car and he made sure it was kept in tip-top condition, but it wasn’t only on lonely roads that evil struck.

“I’d better go, too,” he said, deciding to visit Rose-bank himself.

Bill finished his coffee. “Samie Machin has me looking for a house. Her husband’s overseas in special ops but he’s due on leave in a few weeks and she wants some properties to show him. I’ll stay put until I can have a word with her.”

Cyrus joined Spike to walk out—and bumped into Madge on her way in. He grinned and would have hugged her, but the gentle warning in her eyes and his own caution stopped him in time.

Madge said, “I persuaded Vivian to come into town with me. She needs a break. We’re going to sit outside. Say hi to her when you go by.”

Before Cyrus could respond, Spike left without a word. He went outside to a table where Vivian Patin was settling into a chair with her little dog peering from the top of a straw bag she settled on her lap.

Chapter 11

“Good mornin'. Or good afternoon now, I guess. Looks like Jilly’s gettin’ overrun.”

Vivian looked up into Spike’s blue eyes. He’d come from the pastry shop and hadn’t put on his hat, probably because he had some of those old-world manners a lot of Southern men were born with.

“It’s one o’clock already,” she said, feeling inane. What exactly did you say to a man you’d almost made love with only hours ago?

“How are you feelin’?”

Fortunately, the blush she was working on could be mistaken for reaction to the heat. “Terrific. How about you?” Liar. Hopeless pretty much covered what she felt.

Spike looked at the ground. His hair was short, but very thick and the sun glinted on the ends it had bleached. “I’ve felt better, Vivian,” he said. “Too much on my mind, I reckon.”

Disappointment tightened her skin. “Don’t let me keep you,” she said. A woman could hope and she had hoped he’d say something to steady her.

“Too much getting in the way of the only thing I want to think about.” He met her eyes again, very directly, and her spirits rose, she couldn’t stop them when Spike looked at her as if he couldn’t get enough of…looking at her. “I’m not having much luck keeping my thoughts on track. Seems someone’s been messin’ with my mind.”

“Funny you should say that.” It didn’t take so much to resurrect her natural courage. “My own mind’s been messy lately. The difference between you and me is I could come to like it that way.”

He leaned forward to spread his fingers on the white enameled table and braced his weight on tanned forearms corded with tight muscle and sprinkled with hair bleached by the same sun that got his hair, but darker than you’d expect at the root, dark like the hair on his body.

Vivian stroked Boa in her basket and tried to settle down.

She wasn’t right for him, Spike thought, any more than he was right for her, but he sure wanted it to be otherwise. “I understand Bonine was over to ask more questions,” he said. He couldn’t manage clever conversation right now but neither could he wave and walk on. “He went to St. Cécil’s first.”

She kept her head bowed over the dog. “Madge told me.” Vivian’s hair slid forward, smooth and black, to frame her pale face. “She didn’t tell me what the detective wanted, though.”

The cool yellow dress she wore was belted at the waist. It was hard to keep his eyes off her body.

“It’s hot for Boa,” he said to give himself some breathing room. “Wait right there.”

Vivian didn’t try to stop him from leaving her to go back into the shop. She’d have to be a fool not to know it was too soon for anything but sex to be causing the minefield between them, the one they’d already shown they were foolhardy enough to cross. So far they hadn’t stepped on any explosives, but if they kept wading through that field something was going to get tripped.

“Emergency supplies, Boa.”

Spike returned and Vivian did her best to ignore the women who sat inside by the window pretending, pathetically, not to stare.

Spike poured water from a plastic glass into a saucer and put it on the table. Apparently he’d decided he was irresistible to dogs, even small, feisty dogs who weren’t keen on men.

A Land Rover pulled into the shade of a dogwood tree at the edge of the sidewalk and right in front of All Tarted Up. The dark-haired man who got out, jangling keys in his palm, was the type who got noticed.

“Hi, Marc,” Spike said. “How you holding up?”

The man shook his head slowly but gave a wide smile when he said, “The final months are the hardest.”

Spike introduced Vivian to Marc Girard, Dr. Reb’s tanned, black-eyed husband. “He pretends he’s working out there at Clouds End,” Spike said. “Bein’ an architect. Doodling more likely.”

“And taking care of Reb,” Marc said. “Time to take that woman home. I don’t like her walking around in this heat.” He lost the smile and studied Vivian. “I heard what happened at Rosebank yesterday—and about that ass Bonine. I’m sorry for your trouble. Let us know if we can do anything.” He clapped a hand on Spike’s shoulder and went into the shop.

Spike watched Marc go, then he scratched Boa’s head and carefully lifted her little body from the basket.

“Spike! Watch out.”

The man took no notice of Vivian and set Boa on the table where she went straight for the water, scowling at Spike each time she paused for breath.

“Dogs don’t belong on the table.”

“My friend, Dr. Reb, taught me how dogs have less germs than people.”

“That doesn’t extend to the feet they walk through…through everything on.” She felt eyes through the window again and her spine straightened. Looking directly into Thea’s face, Vivian smiled—and Thea smiled back. The woman did her job at Rosebank enthusiastically and often mentioned how glad she was for the chance. She’d probably known Doll Hibbs for years and was used to the woman’s rude curiosity.

Behaving as if having the town’s law officer hover over her and her dog was nothing out of the ordinary could be the best way to go. Vivian waved at Thea who waved back and grinned. Wazoo waved, too, and Vivian wondered why the woman had chosen to dust her face and hair with white powder.

Boa was on her second helping of water and actually paused to lick drops from Spike’s fingers.

Vivian watched the man turn his hand this way and that and got a tingling sensation in her limbs. The slightest thing about him heated her up. She glanced at his face. Spike held the tip of his tongue between his teeth while he smiled at the dog. Vivian stifled a groan and looked away. He had a mouth she’d never forget, not the way it looked, or the way it felt.

“I’m not much for audiences,” he said, inclining his head toward the bakery window. “How about taking a walk with me?”

She breathed in air too warm to expand her lungs. “Why would we take a walk together?”

“You aren’t helping me out here, Vivian.”

“You’re a strong type. You don’t need help, least of all from a woman—a woman in trouble no less.”

What did they call those things? Spike mused. Pheromones? That was it, Vivian’s pheromones and his own did something happy together.

“Afternoon, Spike.” Ellie Byron walked by. Ellie owned Hungry Eyes, a bookstore and café with two apartments above it, one of which Samie Machin called home. The cottage Bill leased stood in a sizeable enclosed garden behind the building.

“Afternoon, Ellie,” Spike said. “You met Vivian Patin and her pit bull, Boa?”

Ellie stopped and seemed edgy before she held her hand out to Boa who turned her back. “You’re out at Rosebank,” Ellie said to Vivian. “I love that house. Your uncle Guy was a lovely man.”

Vivian nodded and shaded her eyes to see Ellie better.

“I did a few book searches for him and took stuff out there when I got it in. A really kind, good man. He knew so much about so many things—particularly antiques. But he’d dealt in them for years when he was younger. He used to call me up and tell me he’d cleaned out some books and I could have them. That usually meant he’d decided to part with one or two of the thousands he had. And then I had to hang on to them for a while to make sure he didn’t change his mind.” She clucked her tongue. “You don’t need me to tell you about your own uncle.”

“I loved him,” Vivian said. “When I was a kid, coming to Rosebank was like getting into Aladdin’s cave. He gave me the run of the house. ‘Take an apple with you,’ he always said when I took off around the place after breakfast. It’s huge, did you realize that?”

“Oh, I surely did…Well, will you listen to me, forgetting myself.” She held out a hand. “Ellie Byron. Hungry Eyes at the other end of the square belongs to me. Books and gifts, mostly books—new and used. And the iced tea is always free. There’s a little café, too. That’s not free.” She smiled and laughter in her eyes transformed her serious expression.

“My kind of place,” Vivian said, liking this woman but wishing she could be alone with Spike again. “You weren’t always there, though.”

“About two years now,” Ellie said. “The place used to be Connie and Lorna’s Eye For Books. For the first year I managed the shop, then Connie and Lorna moved to Rayne to open a Mardi Gras costume business. That’s when I bought them out.”

“I’ll visit you,” Vivian promised.

The afternoon felt airless but there was enough of a cross current to move Ellie’s short brown curls. When she smiled she looked even younger than she probably was. A pretty woman with a voluptuous body under the loose gauze dress she wore. Ellie’s bright blue eyes were the only jarring note. Beautiful, faintly upswept eyes—too old in their depths and wistful even when she laughed.

She cleared her throat and fidgeted. “You’re having a hard time,” she said. “I can only imagine what you’ve been through with your father’s death and now this thing that happened at Rosebank. I’m very sorry.”

Vivian glanced briefly at Spike. “Thank you, you’re kind.”

“See you at the shop one day, then,” Ellie said. She hovered as if she had more to say, but then she walked on. “Good to meet you. Bye, Spike.”

Spike and Vivian said, “Bye,” in unison and as soon as Ellie was out of earshot, Spike told Vivian, “We need to talk but not here.”

“Where?” she asked, her heart pounding in her throat.

“Do you have your own car or did Madge—”

“I brought my own. It’s parked near your station. Madge said that’s where smart people park because it’s safe.”

He didn’t comment on that. “Leave it there. Walk to my car with me. If we go to the office someone will hear about it and some folks will come to the wrong conclusions.”

“Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?” she asked him. “Or afraid of guilt by association?”

He held her arm and helped her to her feet. The way he looked at her made Vivian squirm and his hard fingers ground the bones in her forearm.

“What is it with you?” he said. “Are you trying to goad me? I’m afraid of very little, and you don’t qualify at all. And embarrassed to be seen with you? Hell, I’m not wasting my breath on that. Common sense is never a bad idea though, cher. Toussaint, birthplace of gossip. And that’s about the way it is, so for your sake I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea. Like I’m questioning you officially.”

“The inevitable?”

“Almost inevitable. Some could already be linking our names. If they get serious about it because we give them reasons, that will not be a good thing. Walk.”

Spike handed Vivian her basket and swept Boa under his arm. She figured a dog attack wouldn’t be long in coming and could be ugly—and when Spike Devol blamed Boa for biting him, Vivian would tell him she had witnesses to the fact that he’d been warned the animal could be hostile.

A man’s firm hand at her waist felt better than it ought to. This man’s hand felt fantastic.

They walked down one side of the town square—which had a triangle of grass decorated with painted gnomes, stone animals and plastic flamingoes at its center. Santa and his sleigh were kept permanently ready to be illuminated for the holidays.

By the time they reached Spike’s official Ford, Vivian could see her van in the distance.

Spike opened the passenger door for her and closed it once she was inside. Her ducked head, the way she frowned through the windshield made him look around expecting to see something or someone nasty. Not a thing. He checked her out again and shook his head. Boa had wriggled around until she could rest her head on his shoulder and he figured the boss wasn’t believing what she was seeing.

“Daddy! Daddy!”

Wendy’s voice surprised him and he swung toward the buildings. She ran down the steps of the gaudy Majestic Hotel and leaped into his free arm. “Hey, sweets, where’s your gramps?” he said and barely stopped himself from asking who was taking care of business.

“He’s talkin’ to Mr. Hibbs. He let me sit on the steps as long as I ran back inside if anyone came. I saw Wally, too. He said I was a baby. He’s eleven, you know. But he let me see Nolan. Oh, Daddy, you bought us a dog. You said you wouldn’t, but you did.”

Spike’s daughter bubbled and smiled, and scratched between Boa’s ears with small, slightly grubby fingers.

The subject had to be changed until he could think of the best way to get out of the dog thing. “You couldn’t have seen Nolan,” he told her. “Nolan went to tarantula heaven.”

“This is Nolan two. That doesn’t mean he’s Nolan, too, just that he’s another Nolan. He’s got cute legs. They’re all fuzzy.”

Spike kissed her nose, hugged her tight, and thought as he so often did that he was one lucky man.

Inside the car Vivian watched with a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes. And she felt like a complete outsider. The little girl had to be Wendy. Pretty small for five, Vivian thought, not that she was an expert. Straight, tow-colored braids stuck out from the sides of her head, and an impishly upturned, freckle-spattered nose balanced a pair of pink glasses with round lenses. Thin arms and legs. Wendy was the kind of waiflike child Vivian invariably had an urge to gather up and care for.

Spike talked to Wendy as if no one else existed on earth. He sat her comfortably on a forearm and she held on tight with both arms around his neck. Bows at the ends of her pigtails matched the fabric in a blue floral dress she wore tied with a sash around the waist. The dress seemed old-fashioned but well-cared-for and whoever combed her hair had practiced.

Vivian had passed the Majestic a few times but never really saw it clearly until now. Thea had told her how Doll Hibbs figured the place was all the hotel the area needed.

Lime green walls and a lilac-colored, gold crosshatched dome on top of a tower at one side made for a lot of visual interest.

“You’ve got a prisoner in your car, Daddy,” Wendy whispered in Spike’s ear, her sunny smile giving way to a frown. “Is she dangerous?”

“Oh, yeah—what am I sayin’, of course she’s not dangerous, and she’s not a prisoner. That’s Miz Vivian Patin. Remember that big house where we went to pick roses one time? Rosebank? Vivian and her mother live there now.”

“Why is she in your car?”

Five-year-olds could have one-track minds. “I’m going to drive her to her vehicle. This is her dog, Boa.”

The frown grew ferocious. “Why are you carrying the dog, Daddy? Is the lady hurt? Can’t she carry her dog? He’s very small.”

“She,” Spike said automatically. He needed a smooth retreat from the brink of disaster. The worst thing he could do would be to make too much out of this. “Vivian’s a nice lady. I know she’ll let you pet her dog if you ask nicely.”

“Why are you carrying the dog, Daddy?” Now the tone was stubborn and behind the owlish lenses, Wendy’s hazel eyes were worried.

“Just bein’ polite and helpful,” he said, feeling foolish. He did the only thing he could think of to do and approached the passenger window on the Ford. Vivian rolled it down. “Vivian, this is my daughter, Wendy. Wendy, say hello to Miz Patin.”

“Vivian. Call me Vivian, Wendy. You have the cutest pigtails.”

Wendy reverted to her hair-tugging, pouty act and didn’t answer.

“Did you meet my dog, Boa?” Vivian got out of the car. “She’s a Chihuahua but she thinks she’s a lion. D’you know what I mean?”

Wendy regarded Boa, reached to stroke the dog and received a lick on the mouth with a giggle. “Lions don’t kiss people,” Wendy said. “I don’t think she wants to be a lion.”

Spike met Vivian’s eyes over his daughter’s head. “My father’s here,” he said, indicating the Majestic. “Come on in and meet him—and Gator Hibbs.”

He could see how much she wanted to refuse, and how she argued herself into giving a nod and going up the hotel steps past the colored whirligigs Doll stuck in planters on either side of the door. It would be easy enough to let her off the hook, but she might as well see how different their lives were.

Inside the vestibule they were confronted with rose-covered stained glass in the interior door. Spike reached around Vivian to turn the handle and let them in. Immediately, Wendy wriggled from his arms and ran across the shabby lobby to the room where hotel guests were invited to sit and watch television in the evenings.

Vivian saw there were people in the room Wendy had disappeared into and turned away blindly, walking straight into Spike’s chest. Boa whined.

“Hey, hey,” Spike said quietly. “Nothing fearsome here. Just inconvenient. We’ll have that talk soon, just as soon as we deal with my dad. I warn you, he’s unconventional.”

“Give Boa to me. They’ll have one less thing to wonder about.”

He handed over the dog. Little, showy dogs weren’t his thing, or they never had been.

Wendy dashed back and took her father’s hand to drag him with her into a room papered with more roses, these climbing brown lattices. Cabbage rose chintz covered sagging chairs and two couches. Wendy didn’t smile at Vivian and Spike decided he’d be chatting with his girl later. She knew better than to be rude.

His father and Gator Hibbs had got to their feet when they saw Vivian. Gator wore his customary T-shirt, baggy overalls and ingenuous grin. He wiped his palms on his pants. Good old Homer did what only he could do so well, he got rid of any expression at all.

Vivian stood up tall and met Gator Hibbs’s eyes. He pushed a sweat-stained Achafalaya Gold Casino baseball cap far back on his head. He nodded and hovered, probably waiting for someone to say he could put his round rear back in the chair.

A tall man who could be in his seventies eased forward from the windowsill where he’d been sitting. His hair was still thick and peppered the way blond hair did when it was time to turn gray. A thin face, clean-shaven, and eyes a darker shade of blue than Spike’s gave the impression that Homer Devol was sharp. Vivian could see the lines of the son’s face in the father’s—but no trace of the optimism she saw in Spike’s expression from time to time, or any hint of his knock-’em-dead smile.

“You must be Spike’s dad,” she said, extending a hand. “You’ve got your hands full with the business and a little girl to care for—but Wendy sure is cute.”

“Wendy’s no trouble. Never was. Never will be to me.” He took his time to shake her hand.

Strike one.

“I’m Vivian Patin, Guy Patin’s niece. My mother and I moved into Rosebank.”

“I know who you are,” Homer said. “Reckon just about everyone for miles around does.”

She was proud of her smile and her nonchalance. “And to think some people go looking for fame,” she said. “I like a quiet life myself, not that Mama and I have a choice until this horrible thing is finished with.”

“Who’s keepin’ shop, Pops?” Spike asked. The cold tone of his voice startled Vivian.

Homer’s still sharp chin came up. “Ozaire. Said he was glad to do it, just like he usually does. I’m gonna give him a reel he’s had his eye on.”

Spike’s hands dropped to his sides and he made fists. “You left Ozaire Dupre at our place? The opposition?”

“You never used to mind.” Homer shrugged. “You gotta trust people. Ozaire’s honest.”

“Sure he’s honest. He’s probably making an honest effort to sabotage my crawfish boiler. And while we’re talking about dumb-ass things to do—Wendy alone on the stoop qualifies, damn it all.”

Homer colored and looked away and Vivian felt terrible for both men.

“Hey Pops,” Spike said, raising his palms. “Sorry for sounding off. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“I can see that,” Homer said, looking at Vivian. “Better concentrate, boy. I hear that Errol Bonine’s on your case again. I don’t want to be visitin’ your beat-up body in the hospital again.”

Spike set his jaw. “Did Claude’s order get picked up?”

“Sure,” Homer said. “The woman came from the houseboat in her pirogue. Never could figure why a man like Claude would live in the swamps the way he does, him bein’ clever and all.”

“He pays promptly,” Spike said, still grim. “Most of those bayou folks are good business.”

Mumbling incoherently, Gator slid from the room and his feet could be heard clumping up the stairs.

From the corner of his eye, Spike saw Wendy start chewing the skin around her fingernails, something she only did when her beloved Gramps and Daddy were on the outs. He made himself relax. Later he’d deal with his father. Now he was under the gun with other things. “I’ll behave myself, Pop,” he said and grinned at Wendy. “Tell Gramps I can be good if I try.”

Wendy giggled.

Homer looked at his pocket watch. “Watch yourself on the steps, Miz Patin. Spike, maybe you better come on out to the place and make sure Ozaire hasn’t gotten up to anything.”

Burning, Vivian turned on her heel but didn’t make it past Spike who stepped in front of her. “I’ll leave that to you, Pops. Nobody’s tougher than you are. Vivian and I will take Wendy with us to the rectory.”

Vivian didn’t want to be in the middle of this.

“Run up and say goodbye to Wally,” Spike told Wendy. “Tell him he should come over to the station and show me his new Nolan.”

The child went silently. Spike resented that she’d witnessed hard feelings, not that it was the first time by too many.

“No need to take her,” Homer said. He rolled in his lips. “You know I go off sometimes. Bad habit.”

“Forget it, Pops. Wendy enjoys Lil Dupre. She can help her in the kitchen while we see to some business with Cyrus.” He stared at his father. “You’ve been around me enough to know how a murder has a way of taking over everything.”

Chapter 12

“They’re still over there at Rosebank, Daddy dear. How long do you suppose it’ll be before someone decides asking us a few questions wasn’t enough. They could decide to check out the inside of Serenity House?”

Dr. Morgan Link held on to the side of the new pool Susan had built for him inside an elegant white marble pool house. Olympia Hurst plagued him daily. He’d expected her to show up here. Calling her mother’s second husband “daddy” while she came on to him appeared to give her a perverse thrill.

He wiped water from his eyes but made sure he didn’t look at her. “If I were a policeman, I would search any properties near the crime scene if I could get the warrants. That’s not always easy unless there’s a real good reason.”

“And that wouldn’t bother you?”

“Why should it?” He pushed off the wall and began swimming a length of the pool in an easy backstroke.

She laughed and shouted after him, “You don’t think the little secret would come out before you and Mama were ready?”

It wouldn’t come out unless someone talked out of school. He’d have to make sure that didn’t happen.

The strength he felt in his limbs, the perfect tone of his entire body, satisfied him. Only one thing could make this swim more perfect. He reached the far wall, flipped over and started back. Olympia wanted him as much as he wanted her—even if their reasons were the smallest amount different.

Perhaps he should shock the little tease and pull her in here with him. He’d seen her enter the bathhouse in a gauzy white halter top and tiny shorts. She loved to flaunt herself whenever she could get him alone.

She felt safe baiting him, goading him…letting him know she hated the man who took her father’s place, even though she couldn’t stay away from him.

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