Praise for

JOANNA WAYNE

“Joanna Wayne masterfully weaves a story

of dark secrets and unforgettable evil.”

—USA TODAY bestselling author Karen Young

on Alligator Moon

“Lose yourself and your heart in the sultry

Cajun setting Joanna Wayne brings to life

in Alligator Moon.”

—reader favorite Judy Christenberry

“Wayne creates compelling relationships and

intricately plotted suspense that will keep readers

guessing in this page-turning, heart-pounding read.”

—Romantic Times on Harlequin Intrigue novel

Attempted Matrimony

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the sultry world of south Louisiana. As a lifelong Louisiana resident, I’ve always loved the romance and mystery associated with the bayou country and have been fascinated with the lore of the Cajun people. That’s why when I got the idea for Alligator Moon, I knew I had to write the book. It’s more than a story of suspense and romance—it’s a journey into a world where alligators slither through murky bayou waters and passion rules the hearts and minds of the citizens.

This is John Robicheaux and Cassie Havelin’s story, but it’s much more than that. It’s also the story of how decent people can become so caught up in a diabolical lie that it destroys them. But mostly it’s a story of suspense that entangles the hero and heroine until they are forced to open old wounds and give themselves a chance to love again.

I love to hear from readers. Please visit my Web site at www.joannawayne.com. Or drop me a line at Joanna@joannawayne.com. Let me know if you’d like to receive my electronic newsletter.

Happy reading,

Alligator Moon
Joanna Wayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

JOANNA WAYNE

is a multipublished, award-winning, bestselling author known for her cutting-edge romantic suspense. She lives with her husband just outside the steamy, sultry city of New Orleans, Louisiana, near the bayou country that was the inspiration and setting for Alligator Moon. A narrow bayou runs behind her house and most afternoons you can find her on the back patio, a glass of iced tea in hand, her fingers typing away on her laptop computer, enjoying the ducks, turtles, egrets and various other wildlife that share her domain. On rare occasions an alligator has even been spotted swimming by.

Joanna has always been an avid reader and she claims that writing her novels of romantic suspense was a natural progression from reading them. Not only is the writing exciting and rewarding, but also she loves the research. In the process of gathering material for her novels, she has rounded up cattle by helicopter, gone on trips deep into humid swamps, walked deserted beaches in the moonlight, visited morgues, looked through gritty crime-scene photos and visited FBI headquarters. And those are just a few of her research adventures.

Writing is more of a passion than a job for Joanna. She loves nothing more than taking a hero and heroine from breath-stealing danger to happily-ever-after. Who could complain about a day like that?

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

DENNIS ROBICHEAUX gave the propofol thirty seconds to work, then leaned over the patient. “Can you hear me, Mrs. Flanders?”

“Is she fully under?” Angela Dubuisson asked, not looking up from the instruments she was readying for the surgeon.

“Yeah. They can’t resist my French kiss.”

“Are we still talking about patients?”

“Now, boo, you know you can’t believe all that trash they talk by Suzette’s.”

“That’s not a problem since I don’t hang out in smoky bars that smell like crawfish and grease.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“Sure I do. A bunch of drunks looking for an easy lay.”

Dennis fit the endotracheal tube down the patient’s throat, slowly, easing it past the relaxed muscles, the task almost second nature to him now.

Angela pulled the blanket over the patient. “How’s she doing?”

“All that’s left is to hook her up to Big Blue,” he said, nodding toward the anesthetic machine. Dennis finished sealing the tube so that the patient wouldn’t choke on her own saliva. “Down for the count. Where’s our surgeon and his faithful nurse?”

As if on cue, the door to the operating room swung open and Dr. Norman Guilliot strode in, his hands still dripping from the sanitizing scrub. Angela became far more animated now that the self-proclaimed king of scalpel makeovers had appeared. She handed him a towel, then helped him into his gown and gloves. Susan Dalton was a step behind the doctor, her blue eyes dancing above her surgery mask.

“Got Ms. Ginny Lynn all ready for you, Doc,” Dennis announced.

Dr. Guilliot leaned over the patient and pinched the excess skin beneath her chin, pulling it tight. “In for the works, isn’t she?”

“Eyelid, face and forehead lift.”

“Must have a sentimental attachment to the nose,” Dennis said.

“She just wants to look her best for the glory of God,” Guilliot said, mimicking the patient as he ran a finger under the delicate eye area. Ginny Lynn was the wife of the Reverend Evan Flanders, a TV evangelist who’d become a household word in the New Orleans area.

Dr. Guilliot lifted the fatty tissue above the lid, pinching and pulling it away from the eye before beginning the delicate task of marking his incision lines in blue.

Dennis monitored his machine. “Want me to make the initial incision for you, Doc, since Fellowship Freddie’s off on his minivacation?”

“No, just stick to giving your Versed cocktails to the patient. The surgery has to be a work of perfection. We can’t have any scars showing when she goes back under the bright glare of fame.”

“I doubt Frankenstein’s scars would show beneath the makeup she wears,” Susan said.

“Careful,” Dennis said. “You’re talking about the Lord’s anointed.”

“What’s the deal with Fellowship Freddie?” Susan asked. “I never see him with a woman. Does he swing the other way?”

“He’s got a girlfriend,” Dennis said. “A real looker, way too hot for him.”

“I guess you checked her out,” Guilliot said.

“Me? Mess around with a friend’s woman? You know me better than that.”

Easy chatter, the kind you didn’t get in a big city hospital. That was one of the reasons Dennis had jumped at the offer to work with Dr. Guilliot at his private clinic. Not only that, but he and the surgeon got along great. If Guilliot treated him any better, Dennis would expect to be in the will.

But the deal clincher for accepting the position had been location. The restored plantation house was practically in his backyard, and good Cajun boys like himself didn’t like straying too far from home.

Angela moved in beside the doctor as he started the procedure. She’d been his tech nurse for twenty years, had come with him sixteen years ago when Dr. Guilliot had left his position as chief of reconstructive surgery at a New Orleans hospital and established the Magnolia Plantation Restorative and Therapeutic Center.

Like any good tech nurse, Angela worked like a seamless extension of the surgeon’s arm. He reached, she was ready with forceps, scalpel, surgery scissors, lighted retractor or lap sponge.

“How are her vitals?” Dr. Guilliot asked.

“Blood pressure’s down. Ninety systolic. I’ll drop off on the gasses.” Dennis turned the knobs, making small, precise adjustments. “How’s the new Porsche?” he asked. “Had it full throttle yet?”

“Close. She’s one sweet piece of dynamics.”

“How ’bout I take her for the weekend and break her in the rest of the way for you?”

“Touch that car, and you lose an arm.”

The chatter continued, from cars to fishing and back again. They were thirty minutes into the operation when Dennis felt the first pangs of apprehension. “Pulse rate is dropping,” he said. “I’m going to inject a vial of ephedrine.”

“What’s the reading?”

“Fifty-five.”

Dennis opened the vial, injected it through the IV line and watched the monitor, confident the ephedrine would kick in and do its job. The seconds ticked away.

“How we coming?” Guilliot asked without looking up from his work.

“Pulse and pressure not responding.” Dennis opened another vial of ephedrine and injected it through the IV. “This should take care of it.”

It didn’t. The numbers continued to slide. Dennis’s hands shook as he tore open the next vial and injected the drug. Still no change. Damn. There was no explanation for this. The woman was healthy. He’d read her chart.

Susan rounded the operating table, took one look at the monitor and gasped.

“What the devil’s going on?” Guilliot demanded.

“Not looking good.”

“Then do something, Dennis. I’ve got her wide open here, and I’m not losing a patient on the table.”

Dennis hadn’t prayed in quite a while. It came naturally now, under his breath, interspersed with curses as sweat pooled under his armpits and dripped from his brow.

Guilliot kept working. “Give me a reading.”

“She’s full code.”

“Sonofabitch!”

Susan moved to Dennis’s elbow. “Stay calm. You can do it. What else do you have?”

“Calcium gluconate.” He injected the drug. Fragments of his own life flashed in front of him as if he were the one slipping away. The sound of his Puh-paw’s voice singing along to his fiddle music on Saturday nights. The smell of venison frying in the big black skillet. The way Kippie Beaudreaux’s tongue had felt the first time he’d kissed her.

The past collided with the present, all bucking around inside Dennis while the monitor continued to glare at him, daring him to defy it.

No easy chatter now. No reassurance. Just deadly silence. He turned to Guilliot. The usually imperturbable surgeon had backed away from the table, jaw clenched, looking totally stunned.

None of the glory. All of the blame. The role of the anesthetist. Dennis grabbed a vial of bretyllium.

Too little, too late.

“Oh, shit!” Angela shoved the instrument cart out of the way, jumped on the black footstool and started pumping on the patient’s chest, hand over hand.

Finally Guilliot snapped out of his paralysis and took over for Angela, pressing the patient’s heart between the sternum and the spine with quick, steady motions.

Dennis was so scared, it was all he could do to hold the long needle as he filled it with epinephrine.

Susan grabbed his arm. “Not intracardiac, Dennis. Not yet.”

“Get the hell out of the way.” Holding the needle in one hand, he grabbed the edge of the sterile drape with his other and ripped the fabric from the runners.

Guilliot stopped pumping as Dennis slid the point of the needle under the breast bone. The room felt small. Icy cold. Quiet, as if they’d quit breathing so that the patient could have their breaths.

They all watched the abnormal rhythm play across the face of the monitor, but Angela said the words out loud. “The tack.”

Dennis snatched the paddles from the crash cart and stuck them to the patient’s chest. The shock lifted her off the table, but still the monitor screen went blank.

Asystole.

Dennis administered the shock again. And again.

Finally Susan took his arm. “She’s gone, Dennis.”

“No one loses a cosmetic surgery patient on the table.” Guilliot’s voice boomed across the operating room, as if he were God issuing an eleventh commandment.

It changed nothing. Ginny Lynn Flanders was dead.

CHAPTER ONE

Six months later

CASSIE HAVELIN PIERSON stared at the sheet of paper. The divorce decree. All that was left of her marriage to Attorney Drake Pierson. She’d have expected the finality of it to be more traumatic, had thought she’d feel anger or pain or maybe even a surge of relief. Instead she felt a kind of numbness, as if the constant onslaught of emotional upheavals over the past year had anesthetized her system to the point that it was unable to respond.

She tossed the decree into a wire basket on the corner of her desk and went back to pounding keys on her computer. Almost ironic that the next word she typed was the name of her ex-husband, but he was all the news these days—him and his client’s suit against Dr. Norman Guilliot.

Leave it to Drake to snare the hottest case of the year. Acclaimed plastic surgeon to the wealthy pitted against the best-known TV evangelist in the south. The locals fed on the details like starving piranhas on fresh flesh, but then New Orleanians always loved a good scandal. So did her boss. It sold magazines, and circulation numbers sold advertising.

The Flanders case had been the hottest news item going for the past six months, even beating out the young woman who’d accused one of the city’s famous athletes of rape. The reverend was on TV every week, proclaiming the gospel according to Flanders and shedding tears over the wife he claimed had been lost to a case of malpractice by the famed Cajun surgeon. And somehow Drake had expedited the trial beyond belief to take advantage of the hype.

Cassie finished the article, hit the print key and picked up the phone on the corner of her desk to make another stab at reaching her dad in Houston. The president of the United States was probably easier to reach, but then the president didn’t draw nearly the salary Butch Havelin did as CEO of Conner-Marsh Drilling and Exploration.

She dialed the number and waited.

“Mr. Havelin’s office. May I help you?”

“It’s Cassie, Dottie. Is Dad around?”

“I’m sorry. You just missed him again. Did you try his cell phone?”

“I did and left a message there, as well.”

“I’m sure he’ll get back to you soon, but if this is an emergency I might be able to track him down.”

“No need for that, but thanks for the offer.” She hung up the phone and slid her notes on the Flanders v. Guilliot case into a manila folder.

“You’re looking glum for a Friday night,” Janie Winston said, stopping by her desk. “Bad day?”

“No worse than usual.”

“A few of us are going to Lucy’s for happy hour. Why don’t you join us? You can drink as much as you want and stagger home from there.”

“Staggering through the warehouse district on a Friday night. Boy, does that sound exciting.”

“Not only glum but sarcastic. Why do I smell a rat named Drake Pierson behind this mood? What’s he want you to give up now, the sheets off the bed he shared with you?”

“Too late. I burned those after I found he’d brought the Tulane cheerleader to the townhouse to take her testimony. Besides, Drake is old news.” She reached over, retrieved the decree and handed it to her co-worker.

“Over and done with. I’d think you’d be celebrating, not sulking. He really is lower than pond scum, you know?”

“Evan Flanders doesn’t think so.”

“Evan Flanders has visions of dollar signs dancing in his head. So, forget ’em all. Let’s go get a margarita.”

Cassie was tempted. She almost said yes, then spied the postcard propped against her pencil cup. “Actually I’m going shopping tonight.”

“Buying something suitable for a hot divorcée?”

“Could be, or at least for a relaxing vacation far away from this humidity.”

“Now that’s what I call a divorce party. When are you leaving?”

“Immediately, I hope, if the airline will let me use my flight credits for the last trip I had to cancel.”

“Does Ogre Olson know about these plans?”

“Not yet.”

“That explains the glum. No way the guy is going to let you leave with the Flanders case going to trial in just two weeks.”

“Only because he thinks the Pierson name in the byline carries some clout.”

“You’ll never hear him admit that. Clout might translate to an increase in salary.”

“No, he’ll use the usual bull. The timing couldn’t be worse for Crescent Connection. I don’t have the time blocked off on the vacation chart. I’m putting the man in a major bind, and…”

“And you’ll owe him big time,” Janie joined in as they quoted in unison the boss’s last word on everything.

“So where are you going on this impromptu vacation?”

“The Greek Islands.”

“Wow! When you play, you play first-class.”

“Come with me.”

“I would in a New York minute if I had a little more money in my vacation fund.”

“How much do you have?”

“Somewhere under five dollars. Not even enough to buy a box of assorted condoms for the travel bag.”

Cassie’s cell phone rang. “Buy something really hot,” Janie said, walking away as Cassie grabbed the phone. “I’ll spring for the condoms.”

Cassie murmured a hurried hello.

“Hi, sweetheart.”

Her dad, finally. “You are one hard man to reach.”

“Sorry about that. Damn merger’s going to drive me nuts before it’s over and done with.”

“Don’t you have a merger committee and a VP working on that?”

“Yeah, but when the going gets tough, I hit the front lines. Is anything wrong?”

“No, I just wanted to get Mom’s itinerary from you.”

“She’s not due home for almost two weeks.”

“I know, but I need to talk to her.”

“Big news?”

“I think I might join her and her friend for the last week or so of their trip.”

“That’s a great idea.”

“Any chance you can fax her itinerary to me tonight or just attach it to an e-mail if you have it on the computer?”

“I don’t think I have it anywhere. I don’t remember even seeing it.”

“You must have. Mom wouldn’t leave the country for six weeks and not tell you how to reach her.”

“I was in London when she left. I assumed she’d given it to you.”

“No.”

“Sorry, baby. All I know is what she told me. She and Patsy…Patsy somebody. Anyway their plans were to spend a few days in Athens then leisurely tour the islands.”

“Patsy David,” Cassie said, filling in the last name for him.

“That’s it. She’s an old high school buddy of your mother’s. Evidently they hooked up when Rhonda went back for her fortieth reunion.”

“Patsy must be quite persuasive to talk Mom into a six-week vacation abroad.”

“It’ll be good for her, especially with me working so much. Why don’t you give Moore’s Travel a call? It’s right here in The Woodlands. One of your mother’s friends from church works there, and Rhonda always lets her book our nonbusiness flights. I’m sure they’ll have a copy.”

“What’s the church friend’s name?”

“I’m not sure. But they’ll have the info in their computer system, so anyone can help you. Have them fax an itinerary to my office when they fax one to you.”

They talked a few minutes more, about nothing in particular. When they hung up, Cassie picked up the postcard and stared at the picture of a small Greek village and the brilliant blue sea beyond. Beautiful beaches. Ancient ruins. Picturesque windmills. Snowy white monasteries. Living, breathing Greek gods.

Goodbye, Drake. Hello, Greece.

JOHN ROBICHEAUX stepped through the open door of Suzette’s and scanned the area looking for his brother Dennis. It didn’t take long to locate him. He was seated at a back table, his hands already wrapped around a cold beer.

John maneuvered through a maze of mismatched tables and chairs, nearly tripping over a couple of young boys who were playing with their plastic hot rods on the grease-stained floor. The air was stifling and filled with the smells of fried seafood, cayenne pepper and stale cigarette smoke—enough to choke a man. Worse, the jukebox was cranking out a 70s rock song at a decibel level just below that of a freight train.

A typical Saturday evening at Suzette’s. Later the families would leave and the drinkers and partiers would take full charge, not staggering back to their homes until the wee hours of Sunday morning. John planned to be long gone by then.

He dropped into the rickety wooden chair across the table from his brother. A young waitress he’d never seen before appeared at his elbow.

“You want a beer?”

“I’ll take a Bud.”

“Draft?”

“In the bottle if you’ve got a real cold one.”

“Icy cold.”

“Bring me another while you’re at it,” Dennis said. “And keep ’em coming.”

“You looking to have a good time tonight?” she asked, staring at Dennis through long, dark lashes so thick they had no use for mascara.

“I might be,” Dennis said, giving her a once-over. “You looking to be invited to the party?”

She blushed, but smiled. “I’m just here to bring the beer.”

He and Dennis both watched her walk away, her white shorts hugging her firm little ass above great thighs.

“How would you like to have those legs wrapped around you tonight?” Dennis asked.

“Not enough to do jail time.”

“Those breasts look like they’ve been growing at least eighteen years to me. Besides, a sweet thing like that might inspire you to clean up a bit—at least use a razor once in a while. You’re starting to look like a mangy dog.”

John rubbed his chin and the spiky growth of half a week. “Hope you had a better reason for this visit than insulting me.”

“We’re brothers. We should see each other once in a while.”

“I’m easy to find.”

“When you’re not out in the Gulf. How’s the fishing business?”

“It’ll do. I’ve got a group of guys down from New York for a week starting Monday. Long as Delilah don’t come calling, we’ll be fine.”

“Supposed to be a bad year for hurricanes.”

“Don’t take but one to be bad if she hits you dead-on.”

“Yeah.”

The waitress returned with the beers. Dennis took a long, slow pull on his. “You ever miss your old life?”

“Mais non.” John drank his beer slowly, letting the cold liquid trickle down his throat. He wasn’t about to rehash the past or his mistakes. Old horror stories should not be washed up by cold beer.

“You could be rich by now,” Dennis said. “Driving a Porsche, picking up high-class babes.”

“High-class babes don’t screw any better than poor ones, sometimes not as well. Besides, one successful Robicheaux is more than Beau Pierre ever expected to see.”

Dennis cracked his knuckles, a nervous habit he’d picked up from their grandfather. “I’m thinking of leaving Beau Pierre.”

The statement was the night’s first surprise and the first clue as to what had really prompted Dennis’s call. “I thought you and Guilliot were close as two crabs in a pot.”

“Guilliot’s all right. I just think it’s time I move on. Beau Pierre’s starting to feel more and more like one of Puh-paw’s old muskrat traps.”

“You didn’t knock up some local jolie fille, huh?”

“Nothing like that.” He stretched his legs under the scarred old table. “It’s just time I move on. That’s all.”

“You didn’t feel that way last time we talked.”

“Things change.”

“They changed real fast. This doesn’t have anything to do with losing a patient on the operating table, does it?”

Dennis choked on the beer he’d just swallowed, coughed a few times into his sleeve, then slammed his almost empty bottle onto the table. “You talking about Ginny Lynn Flanders?”

“Who else?”

“That wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t nobody’s fault. She just had a bad heart condition that had never been diagnosed. Guilliot’s gonna win that lawsuit easy.”

“I just asked.”

“Well, I just answered.”

Not honestly, John figured, judging from Dennis’s reaction. But he sure as hell wasn’t in a position to tell anyone how to live his life. “When will you be making the move?”

“Soon, but keep it quiet. I haven’t told Dr. Guilliot yet, and I want him to hear it from me first.”

“Good idea. Have you told anyone else?”

“Nobody I can’t trust. You ought to think about a change, too, John. You can’t live in that old trapper’s shack and avoid life forever.”

“I’m not avoiding.” He chased the lie with a swig of beer. “Where are you planning to go?”

“I’m thinking about Los Angeles. I got a buddy out there I went to medical school with. He says the field’s wide open. Lots of job opportunities and enough sun-bronzed hotties to make me forget my Cajun bellos.”

“Might not be as good as it sounds. The rules are different once you leave the bayou country. No buddies watching your back when the gators come after you.”

“I don’t think they have a lot of gators in Los Angeles.”

“Oh, they got ’em all right. Only the gators out there wear high-priced suits and designer shoes from Italy.”

“Maybe I won’t go that far.”

But he was going. John could tell the decision had been made. He’d liked to have asked more questions, but that wasn’t the type of relationship they had. He didn’t answer questions so he forfeited the right to ask them. Still, he hated to see Dennis leave town, especially if he was being driven out.

And that was a possibility he wouldn’t put past Norman Guilliot. “It’s your call, Dennis. Just make sure you’re the one doing the calling.”

The waitress stopped by their table again. “You want another beer?”

John looked at her again, letting his gaze take it all in, from the dark, straight hair that curved around her face and fell down the back of her neck to the perky breasts and hips that flared from the narrow waist.

She was a looker, and the way she was batting those eyes at Dennis, seemed like she might have changed her mind about wanting to party.

“Make mine a whiskey,” John said. His little brother was leaving town. Reason enough to hit the hard stuff.

DENNIS KEPT both hands on the wheel as he slowed and maneuvered the sharp turn. He shouldn’t be driving at all after so many beers, but it wasn’t far to the old house he’d rented from Guilliot’s nephew. Another mile or so and he’d be home.

His mind wandered back in time. Shrimping out in the bays with Puh-paw. And on Saturday nights Muh-maw would make the big pot of gumbo. And the stories Puh-paw would tell about trapping and hunting back in the good old days before there was such a thing as licenses and limits. They’d been terrific grandparents.

John and Dennis had different mothers; it didn’t matter much since Muh-maw and Puh-paw had raised them both anyways.

Dennis didn’t remember his parents at all. He’d been only two when their father had gone to jail up in Jefferson Parish. He’d never come home. He didn’t know that much about his mother. Muh-maw hadn’t let anyone mention her name in the house, but John had told him once that she’d run off with some guy from Lafayette.

Dennis nodded, then jerked his head backward, fighting sleep. He shouldn’t have taken those two pills back at Suzette’s, but he’d had a migraine the first part of the week and the thing was threatening to come back on him.

He gunned the engine, then threw on his brakes when he saw something lying across the road in front of him. The car left the pavement, skidded along the shoulder, then careened into the swamp before it finally came to a stop.

Dennis wasn’t sure what was on the road, but it had looked a lot like a body. Could be some drunk passed out walking home from a neighbor’s. Only there weren’t any houses along this stretch of road. He loosed his seat belt and opened the door. When he stepped out, his feet sank into a good six inches of water before being sucked into the mud. His good shoes, too.

He jerked at the sound of something swishing through the water behind him. A water moccasin? A gator? He spun around. Too late.

His head exploded, but Dennis never felt the pain or the blood and bits of brain spilling over his body. Never knew when he sank to the soggy swamp now red with his blood.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS HALF PAST EIGHT in the morning when Cassie padded to the front door of her fourth-floor condominium, stepped into the quiet hall and snagged her morning copy of the Times Picayune. She skimmed the headlines as she walked back to the kitchen for her first cup of coffee.

Drake and the Flanders case were beaten out for top billing by a three-car pileup on I-10, but they made honorable mention in smaller headlines about a third of the way down the page: Pierson Accuses Beau Pierre Sheriff Of Mishandling Evidence.

And whether he had or not—whether Drake believed he had or not—he could ride that horse for days. The bigger spectacle the pretrial hoopla, the less attention anyone actually paid to testimony or evidence once the trial itself got underway. And Drake was the master of spectacle.

Dr. Norman Guilliot was in for a fight.

Cassie dropped the paper to the kitchen table and poured the dark, chicory-laden brew into an oversize mug. But instead of taking it back to the table, she took it out on the balcony to watch the morning traffic of ferries, tug boats and barges along the muddy Mississippi.

The view from the balcony had been the factor that tipped the scale for buying this condo instead of the larger and more reasonably priced one on St. Charles Avenue. The view and the fact that she could walk the six blocks to work rather than take the streetcar.

She sipped her coffee and took in the sights. The ferry from Algiers to the foot of Canal Street passed a few yards in front of a slow-moving tanker heading downriver. A sleek cruise ship was docked at the River Walk and nearer the aquarium a much smaller boat was already loading tourists in shorts and sunglasses, their cameras around their necks and their cash stashed in fanny packs that hung under paunchy stomachs.

The activity was like a restless surge of energy, constantly moving, searching for the next bend in the river, the next port of call.

The next chapter in her life. Nothing like making an analogy personal.

She glanced at her watch. Almost nine. Moore’s Travel should be opening soon. Greece might be the answer to her need to go forward with her life, and she was so ready to get out of New Orleans for a while.

Besides, the trip would give her a chance to spend some quality time with her mother. They’d drifted apart during the seven years she’d spent married to Drake. Mainly because when they’d been together her mother had always cut to the chase and asked the dreaded question.

“Are you happy?”

Well, duh? I’m married to the hottest upcoming attorney in New Orleans if not the south. No one but a mother would even think to ask such a question. And if no one ever asked, Cassie didn’t have to answer.

You can ask now, Mom. The answer is not yet, but I’m getting there. Greece would be a nice step along the way. But with or without Greece, I’m taking back control of my life.

BUTCH HAVELIN rolled over in bed and stared at the ceiling of his Houston apartment. It was already late afternoon in Greece. Rhonda was probably getting ready for dinner with her friend. She liked to eat early, liked schedules and order and life that fit into neat little compartments and never got befuddled with spontaneity or excitement.

Opposites attract. The problem was the attraction wore thin over time, became frayed and faded, like an old shirt after too many washings. He and Rhonda had seen thirty years of washings.

Now they lived in the same house, slept in the same bed—at least, they did the nights he made it back to their home in The Woodlands—still saw some of the friends they’d known since the early days of their marriage. Rhonda still offered her cheek for a quick peck in the mornings when he left for work and they hugged each other when he left on business trips.

Sometimes they even went through the motions of making love. The saddest thing was that he didn’t even know when it had all slipped away. The passion had just crept from their lives like heat seeping from a hot bath, leaving nothing but tepidity.

Babs stretched beside him, but didn’t open her eyes. The sheet slipped down and her breasts peeked over the top, soft mounds of firm, golden flesh and pinkish nipples. Small, but all perky and perfect.

Butch never bothered with trying to convince himself that what he and Babs had now would last or even that he wanted it to. She was thirty-four, only a couple of years older than Cassie. He was sixty-one. They were a generation apart in music, memories and experiences. But none of that seemed to matter when they were together. She made him potent and alive, gave him back snatches of his youth, and made him feel as if he were some stud muffin she couldn’t get enough of.

He didn’t want a divorce, definitely didn’t want to split up his assets at this point in life. But he was glad Rhonda was in Greece, would be happy for her to stay there a few more months. Safe. Happy. And gone.

Truth was he’d never given her itinerary a thought, but he’d phone his daughter again today and feign a little concern so that Cassie wouldn’t get all upset and start bugging him about why he didn’t know exactly where her mother was.

The one thing he didn’t need in his personal life was complications. Not from Cassie. Not from Rhonda. Not even from Babs.

Conner-Marsh was all he could handle right now, and if he let this merger get screwed up, his ass was grass. There were plenty of younger guys waiting around to knock the old man off the top.

JOHN ROBICHEAUX pulled the pillow over his head to block the jangling ring of the telephone. The whiskey from last night was blasting away inside his head like a jackhammer. His stomach didn’t feel so great, either. He reached across the bed, checking to be certain he was in it alone.

He was. Time was that would have been enough to send him back to the kitchen for a hair of the dog that was gnawing away at the base of his skull. These days it just brought a quick wave of relief.

The phone kept ringing. He reached for it, started to yank it from the wall connection, then changed his mind. It might be a guide job and he could use the business—as long as they didn’t expect him to ride those choppy waves today.

“John Robicheaux. Can I help you?”

“I got some bad news for you, John.”

John struggled to pull his mind from the mire. “Who is this?”

“Sheriff Babineaux.”

The sheriff. Shit. John must have gotten in a fight and busted up something last night. He tried to remember but only picked up bits and pieces of the night between the shattering blows of the jackhammer. “What’d I do?”

“It’s Dennis, John.”

“What did he do?”

“He’s dead.”

The words cut through the fog, jerking John from the stupor. He threw his legs over the side of the bed, the sudden move sending the room into a tailspin.

“You gotta be mistaken, Tom. I saw Dennis last night. He was fine.”

“It’s no mistake. I wouldn’t call you with this kind of news if I wasn’t certain.”

Damn. This was John’s fault. He should have stayed sober. Should have seen that his little brother got home safe. Now… “Did he hit another car or just run off the road?”

“Neither. It wasn’t an accident, John. Dennis ate a bullet.”

“Murdered?”

“Suicide.”

No! Hell no! Him, maybe, but never Dennis. Dennis had a life. Beer to drink. Women to screw. A big move all planned.

“I guess I should have come out there and told you myself, but it being Saturday and all, I thought I’d better catch you before you headed out into the Gulf on a fishing trip.”

“When did you find out?”

“A few minutes ago. Must have happened sometime during the night, but no one noticed the car over in the swamp until this morning. Hank LeBlanc and a couple of his sons found it and gave me a call. I’m here now.”

“Where’s here?”

“Bayou Road, a couple of miles before the turnoff to Dennis’s place.”

“Don’t move the body until I get there.”

“This ain’t a pretty sight, John. Why don’t you wait and see the body once it’s down at the funeral home and Dastague’s got it cleaned up?”

“Forget Dastague. I want an autopsy and I want it done in New Orleans.”

“No cause, John. There’s not a sign of foul play.”

“Yeah, well I call a bullet plenty sign of foul play. And the cause for the autopsy is that I said so. I want a full investigation, Tom, not some half-assed job that won’t get beyond the ridicule stage with a grand jury.”

“Calm down, John. I know how you felt about Dennis. Hell, we all loved him. He was good-time tonic in solid form. But he had his problems. You know that.”

“Yeah, well you’re the one who’s got them now, Tom. Full autopsy. Full investigation. Stay put. I’m on my way over there.”

“There’s no use. I checked—”

“I’m on my way. Be there.”

The jackhammer was still at work, pounding so that John stumbled as he went to the kitchen for drugs to kill the pain. He shook four extra-strength painkillers into his hand and chased them with a glass of water from the tap.

Images flashed through his mind, like stabs of glaring light. Dennis laughing. Dennis fishing. Dennis scared as shit the time he tipped the pirogue over when they were teasing the old gator with raw chicken wings.

Dennis shaking like an old man in detox a few hours after Ginny Lynn Flanders had died on the operating table.

Suicide, hell! This had the stench of Dr. Norman Guilliot all over it.

“I’M NOT SURE who I need to talk to,” Cassie explained once she got Moore’s Travel on the phone. “My mother is Mrs. Butch Havelin and my father said she books all her travel through your agency.”

“Sure. Rhonda Havelin. You must be Cassie.”

“Right.”

“I’ve heard so much about you from Rhonda, I feel as if I know you. Your mother and I are members of the same church and we’ve worked on a couple of committees together. She’s very efficient and organized, keeps us all on task.”

“That would be my mother.”

“So, what can I do for you?”

“I need to get in touch with Mom, but I don’t have her itinerary. Can you pull it up for me?”

“Are you talking about her Greece trip?”

“That’s the one.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you with that. She came in and picked up some pamphlets on the islands and sites of interest in and around Athens, but the friend she was going with booked the trip.”

“I don’t suppose you know the name of the booking agency.”

“No. Did you check with your father?”

“I talked to him last night. He probably has the itinerary somewhere but can’t put his hands on it.”

“I hope this isn’t an emergency situation.”

“Nothing serious, but I would like to talk to her. Did Mom mention any specific hotels?”

“No, only that they planned to stay in smaller, family-owned establishments so they could experience more of the authentic Greek culture.”

“That doesn’t sound like Mom.”

“I cautioned her to be careful with that when I saw her at church before she left, but I got the feeling that her friend had traveled the area before. It’s a very safe part of the world.”

“Mom usually thinks anything less than a four-star hotel is roughing it.”

“Nothing like hooking up with an old high school friend to make you adventuresome.”

“Guess not.” But Cassie suspected it would take a lot more than that to make her mother adventuresome. She was probably sitting in some air-conditioned hotel calling for room service and reading a book while her friend did all the adventuring.

Cassie thanked the woman for her trouble and broke the connection. Who’d have ever thought that locating her mother would be the hardest part of planning her own vacation?

But Patsy David sounded as if she might be just what Cassie’s mother needed—bold and open to new experiences. Perhaps Cassie shouldn’t join them. It might throw her mother back into her maternal mode and spoil her fun. Cassie decided she’d give that further consideration if and when she actually got to talk to Rhonda.

And she wasn’t giving up on that yet. She still had her ace in the hole. If her mother’s next-door neighbor didn’t know the details of the Greece trip, Cassie was certain it wouldn’t be from lack of prying.

She retrieved Marianne Jefferies’s phone number from information and made the call. They exchanged the perfunctory hellos and Cassie got right to the point before Marianne had a chance to start her own round of questioning.

“I’m trying to get in touch with Mom. Did she leave you a copy of her itinerary?”

“Why? Is anything wrong?”

“No. I’d just like to give her a call and see how her vacation’s going.”

“You’ll have to talk to Butch then. As secretive as Rhonda was about this trip, I doubt anyone else would know how to find her.”

“What do you mean by secretive?”

“Well, anytime I asked her about the trip, she changed the subject. Might as well have just said it was none of my business.”

Imagine that. “So she didn’t mention any specific plans?”

“I got the impression they didn’t have any. I drove Rhonda to the airport when she left. She seemed really nervous that day, which made perfect sense to me. I mean, in this day and age, anything could happen to two women traveling alone.”

A morbid thought. Cassie wasn’t going to go there, but she was starting to feel a bit uneasy. “I don’t guess you have her friend Patsy’s home number.”

“No. I’m not even sure where the woman lives. Some little town in northern Louisiana.”

“Minden?”

“That sounds right.”

“I may try to find her phone number. See if her husband has an itinerary.”

“You’re out of luck there. I asked why Patsy wanted Rhonda to go to Greece with her instead of going with her husband and Rhonda said Patsy had never married.”

No wonder she still had energy to go on adventures.

“If you talk to Rhonda, let me know how she’s doing. I swear she and Patsy sound like the senior version of Thelma and Louise. Trouble, if you know what I mean. And with all those attractive Greek guys around looking for rich American women to seduce.”

Cassie finished the phone conversation, then walked to the counter, refilled her coffee cup and flicked on the radio. She switched the dial to her favorite light jazz station, tuning in just in time for the news break.

Dennis Robicheaux, anesthetist at the Magnolia Plantation Restorative and Therapeutic Center, shot and killed himself last night less than a mile from his home on the outskirts of Beau Pierre. Robicheaux had been part of the surgery team when Ginny Flanders died during a routine cosmetic surgery operation.

A suicide. Talk about stirring a handful of complications into the pot. The situation now reeked of guilt on the part of the surgery team and gave Drake and Reverend Evan Flanders a huge advantage in public opinion if not in the trial itself.

It might add a few insurmountable hurdles to Cassie’s plans, as well. Her boss would want human interest stories and some investigative articles on the new development. Olson was determined to turn the previously floundering Crescent Connection into a magazine no local citizen would want to be without.

He wanted in-your-face reporting on issues that mattered and up-close and personal articles on the kind of stories that the citizens just couldn’t get enough of. Dennis Robicheaux’s suicide would fit solidly into the latter category. Olson would have complained about an impromptu vacation before the suicide. He’d likely veto it now.

Instead of a week in the Greek Islands, she’d be tooling around the tiny south Louisiana town of Beau Pierre. It was a disgustingly poor tradeoff.

NORMAN GUILLIOT stepped into the shower, his body still humming from the orgasm he’d reached a few minutes ago with his wife. Fifteen years of marriage, and Annabeth could still touch all the right buttons to get him off.

She wasn’t as hot as she’d been when he’d first met her, but at thirty-six she still had a body that turned heads. She was smart, too, a lot smarter than most folks gave her credit for being. Her worst fault was probably her extravagance. If one fur coat was too much for a climate that never saw a real winter, buy two. But he could afford her, so what the hell.

The goal now was to stay wealthy. He’d worked damn hard to get where he was, and he wasn’t letting some two-bit lawyer and a TV Bible thumper yank it away from him. He was fifty-eight, years too old to start over.

Norman adjusted the stream of water until it was as hot as he could stand it, then let it pulsate onto his shoulders and roll down his taut stomach and over his private parts, washing his and Annabeth’s juices right down the drain. That was okay. They were in endless supply. He squirted some shampoo into his thinning hair and worked it into peaks of lather.

The shower door opened and Annabeth poked her head inside, looking like some blond apparition floating in the fog of vapors.

“You have a phone call.”

“Get the name and number. I’ll call them back when I get out of the shower.”

“It’s Sheriff Babineaux. He says it’s important.”

Norman’s muscles tightened and his breath seemed to be sucked into the steamy vapor that whirled around him. “Did he say what this is about?”

“No.”

He rinsed the shampoo from his hair, then left the water running when he stepped onto the wine-colored carpet to take the receiver from Annabeth.

“What’s up, Tom?”

“Your anesthetist killed himself.”

“Dennis?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, I’m sure. I’m looking at the body right now.”

“When did this happen?”

“Sometime during the early hours of the morning. Apparently he was driving home from somewhere. He ran his car off the road just south of the Tortue Bayou.”

“But you said he shot himself.”

“He did. Shot himself right in the head. The gun was still lying there in the swamp when Hank LeBlanc found him this morning. He was heading out to do some fishing and saw the car. Stopped to check it out, and there was Dennis. Dead.”

“Dennis? Dead?” The words tumbled about in Norman’s brain, and for a second he wasn’t sure if he’d said them out loud or merely thought them.

“I know this is a shocker, Doc.”

“Are you certain it was suicide?”

“No doubt. Of course, his brother John isn’t buying that, but the evidence is here. It’s open and shut to my mind, and my mind is the one that counts in this parish.”

“Is John there with you?”

“No, but he’s on his way.”

“So am I. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Why not?”

“Dennis blew his brains out with a .45. That ain’t the best accompaniment to breakfast.”

“It won’t be my first sight of blood—brains either, for that matter.”

Annabeth was staring at him when he broke the connection.

He’d like to spare her this, but that was the thing about fame and wealth. It set you inside this giant ball and everybody who walked by felt compelled to give it a kick. She was in the ball with him, so she’d have to prepare herself for a new onslaught of reporters’ feet slamming into their ball.

“What is it now?” she asked.

“Dennis Robicheaux shot and killed himself last night.”

“Oh, no! Not Dennis.”

His towel slipped from his waist as he reached for her and pulled her into his arms.

“Not Dennis. Please. Not Dennis.”

“I know it doesn’t seem possible, but these things happen.”

“He didn’t kill himself. I know he didn’t. He wouldn’t.”

“You don’t know him that well, sweetheart. He had some problems.”

“No. Not Dennis. He wouldn’t kill himself. Why would he?”

“Who knows? Maybe it’s the Robicheaux blood. Look at his brother. As soon as the first blast of adversity hit, John came running home to drown himself in whiskey and the same stinking life he’d worked to escape.”

“Dennis wasn’t like John.”

“I’m not saying he was, but he was still a Robicheaux.”

“It was the reporters who did this to him, Norman, not his Robicheaux blood. They kept hammering away at him, determined to blame Ginny Lynn Flanders’s death on him.” She pulled away, looked in the mirror, then dabbed her eyes with the back of her hands. “What will this do to the lawsuit?”

“Nothing. The reporters will howl and make a big show about it, but in the end, it won’t have a thing to do with the legal proceedings.”

“I hope you’re right.”

So did he. “I’m going to finish my shower and meet the sheriff out where they found the body.”

“I want to go, too.”

“It’s no place for a woman.”

She barely knew Dennis, but she had a tender heart, cried over dead goldfish. He’d like to stay here with her. He sure had no desire to see the body, but he had to be certain John didn’t throw some of the stinking Robicheaux shit into the mix.

This was suicide. And a suicide it would stay.

CHAPTER THREE

JOHN HIT the brakes and steered the car to the shoulder of the narrow road. A group of about six men stood in ankle-deep water a few yards away, gathered around the body. The body. Dennis.

The reality of the situation hovered over him, but it hadn’t struck yet. Once he walked over and stood where the sheriff and the others were, once the image got inside his head, reality would grab him by the balls and squeeze down tight.

A warning screamed and echoed in his ears as he sloshed into the bog. Hold back the day. Hold back the stinking black day. But the sun was already beating down on him, the fetid air already clogging his lungs. There could be no holding back.

His boots sank into the mud, stirring up the mosquitoes that hid in the low grass.

“I’m sorry about this, John, really sorry.”

John nodded, acknowledging the sheriff’s words but avoiding eye contact with him and the others. He didn’t want to feel any bond with them, didn’t need their self-serving commiseration. Pity was debilitating, and he needed his wits and strength to see him through this.

He forced himself to look at what was left of Dennis. For a second, he thought he might just collapse and evaporate in the morning heat. Somehow he held it together and his training as a defense attorney checked in, registered every contingent. The position of the body, the bloodied and shattered remains of the brain. The splatters of blood on the thick plants that clogged the swampland.

“It’s a rotten shame,” LeBlanc said. “Dennis was a good man.”

“Yeah. A rotten shame. Has the body been moved?” John asked.

“We haven’t touched it,” Babineaux answered.

“I want pictures before it’s moved to New Orleans for an autopsy.”

“I know this is tough, John, but you need to get a grip. What’s an autopsy going to show that we can’t see for ourselves plain as day? Dennis was shot in the head at point-blank range with his own gun. We found the weapon right at his fingertips.”

“How do you know it was Dennis’s gun?”

Babineaux held up a plastic bag containing a small blue metal Colt .45 with a brown wooden grip. “Are you going to tell me it isn’t?”

John stared at the weapon. It was his grandfather’s pistol, World War II vintage, the first weapon John had ever shot. He’d practiced his aim by firing it at tin cans behind the house long before he was old enough to get a driver’s license.

“I recognize it,” he said, figuring it was no use to lie. Babineaux had taken the thing away from the old man often enough when he’d had too much to drink in Suzette’s and started waving it at anyone fool enough to argue with him.

“I don’t give a damn if you found his finger on the trigger. Dennis didn’t shoot himself.”

“No sign there was anyone else with him.”

“You don’t have any proof there wasn’t. So I suggest you get a decent crime-scene unit out here even if it means calling one in from New Orleans.”

“I don’t know what they’d do that I haven’t.”

“I want every detail you can sieve out of this bloody swamp.”

“I’m sorry about your brother, John. We all liked Dennis. You know that. But the guy had problems and maybe he just couldn’t deal with them.”

“Or maybe Norman Guilliot couldn’t.”

“Don’t go making crazy accusations.”

“Then do your job.” John swatted at a mosquito that was feeding on his neck, then walked toward Dennis’s car. It looked as if he’d just lost control and slid off into the bog. A few seconds later and he’d have hit the bridge railing or possibly plunged into the rain-swollen bayou.

Maybe that’s what the killer had meant for him to do. A nice, accidental drowning. The gun might have been the insurance, plan B in case the first option didn’t fly. Either way, something must have been planted to make certain Dennis left the road at the specific spot where his killer was waiting.

Possibilities swirled in the fog that filled John’s mind. He looked up as a black Porsche skidded to a stop along the shoulder of the road.

Dr. Norman Guilliot crawled from the low-slung car and took a few steps toward them with the same air of authority he probably flaunted in the operating room. But a few steps were all he’d be taking. Dressed in white trousers and a light blue pullover shirt, he wasn’t about to traipse through the murky water the way the rest of them had.

At least not in the hot glare of the day with witnesses all around. Last night would have been a different story. John imagined him, slinking around in the dark, startling Dennis then sticking the pistol to his head. Dennis would have been an easy target, like blinding a doe with a high-powered flashlight and taking it down at point blank range. The kind of high-stake, no-risk operation a man like Guilliot would choose.

The sheriff started toward Guilliot and the rest of the entourage followed, leaving Dennis’s body to the insects and the stifling humidity.

John felt the hate swelling inside him and welcomed it. He could get his hands around hate, it was so much easier to deal with than the pain. He strode toward Guilliot, reaching him a few seconds after the others.

“I’m sorry about this, John, really sorry. I don’t know what else to say. I’m still reeling with the shock of it myself.”

“Shock doesn’t show much on you, Guilliot.”

Guilliot fixed his gaze on John, a study in faux compassion. “I’m not going to get into an argument with you at a time like this. I won’t show that kind of disrespect toward Dennis.”

“Your concern is underwhelming.”

Dr. Guilliot shrugged his shoulders. “If blaming me helps you deal with this, go right ahead, John. But it doesn’t change anything. Dennis took his own life, and I guess that means we all let him down, including you.”

“Dennis didn’t kill himself. He had no reason to.”

“Guess you best take that up with Sheriff Babineaux.”

The sheriff sidled up next to Guilliot. “I told you we don’t need no trouble out here, John. Why don’t you go back to your place and clean up a bit? Call you a friend to go to the funeral home in Galliano and make what arrangements need to be made.”

John turned and stared at the sheriff, studied his gray eyes, his two crooked front teeth and the way his bottom lip curled downward as if it wanted to crawl away from the rest of his mouth. He’d known Babineaux all his life, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever really noticed him until today. Now everything about the sheriff and the entire morning were searing their way into the lining of John’s brain.

“I expect, no make that demand, an autopsy, Babineaux. You see that it’s done or I see your ass in court.”

Guilliot moved into John’s space, his eyes narrowed and accusing. “Making a big show’s not going to bring Dennis back or atone for that little girl you set the monster loose on, John. So why don’t you just let your brother rest in peace?”

John fought the sudden urge to bury his fist into Guilliot’s gut. Instead he turned and walked back to his truck, wondering how in hell Dennis’s life had come to nothing more than a decaying body half-buried in a stinking bog on the edge of the road.

Both Babineaux and Guilliot probably thought this would blow over, that John would go home and drown his grief in a fifth of Jack Daniel’s, but they were wrong. Someone had murdered Dennis and John would see that the man who had done it paid if he had to strangle him with his bare hands.

If it turned out to be Dr. Norman Guilliot, the act would be pure pleasure.

CASSIE DROVE to Beau Pierre on Sunday afternoon, more to scope out the place than to do any kind of in-depth investigating. The newspapers and TV news broadcasts would carry the facts surrounding the suicide, but sterile details were not what Olson would be looking for.

Cassie had some ideas brewing in her mind, but she wanted to get a feel for the lay of the land and the emotional climate of the setting before she met with her boss the next morning.

She’d done her homework yesterday, searched for any information she could find on the small town of Beau Pierre. It was no more than a dot on the map, a fishing village a few miles south of Galliano.

It was like dozens of other fishing villages in the area except that Beau Pierre was home to the Magnolia Plantation Restorative and Therapeutic Center, the clinic that drew the rich and famous from all over the world to have the renowned Dr. Norman Guilliot surgically restore their youth.

She’d already stopped at the café in town and asked a few questions. Mostly she’d learned that folks didn’t hang out in the café on Sundays and that the waitress named Lily didn’t care much for reporters.

Cassie slowed and glanced at the map she’d printed from the Internet. If her directions were accurate, she should be close to the Center now. A half mile later she saw the gate, a massive iron affair just off the road.

She pulled into the paved drive and pushed the button on the entry panel. The intercom hummed softly, followed by a female voice.

“Welcome to Magnolia Plantation. How may I help you?”

She felt a little like a predator at the home of one of the little pigs. Let me in so that I can eat you. Or she could just say she was a reporter. That would get her about the same reception.

“I’m interested in touring the Center.”

“I’m sorry. The plantation and grounds are private. No one’s admitted except our registered guests and our staff.”

“How do I find out if I want to be a registered guest if I can’t view the facilities?”

“You can make an appointment during business hours and Dr. Guilliot will meet with you personally.”

“I drove all the way from New Orleans. Can’t I just take a quick look around?”

“I wish I could say yes, but the rules are strictly enforced to preserve the privacy of our guests. I’m sure you can appreciate that.”

And keeping out reporters was just a little lagniappe. Cassie climbed from her car, walked over to the gate and peered through the ornate pattern of iron bars. The driveway was long and winding, the extensive grounds perfectly manicured. Only glimpses of the plantation house were visible through the trees, but Cassie saw enough to tell that the place was not only massive but beautifully restored.

She was still staring when a mud-encrusted black pickup truck pulled in and stopped, blocking her car between its front bumper and the gate.

The man who stepped from behind the wheel was tall and muscular with long, straggly hair and a tanned face spiked with coarse black whiskers. He walked toward her, emanating a kind of raw animal potency that seemed more than a little menacing.

“Are you looking for Dr. Guilliot?” he asked, his hard stare never wavering.

“Not particularly.”

“Then who are you looking for?”

None of his damned business. She started to fire that comment at him, but stopped herself. It wasn’t smart to start fights when she was sniffing out a story. “I’m just interested in the clinic.”

“Like hell you are. You’re interested in digging up dirt for that magazine you work for.”

“How do you know who I work for?”

“You didn’t exactly sneak into town quietly. Even if you had, a stranger always gets noticed here.”

“Who are you?” she demanded, wishing he wasn’t standing between her and her car.

“John Robicheaux.”

“Any kin to Dennis?”

“His brother.”

“I see. I’m sorry. His death must have been a shock for you.”

He ignored her expression of sympathy. “Did Dr. Guilliot ask you to come see him?”

“I haven’t talked to Dr. Guilliot.”

“So you just smelled a little dirt and came running?”

“Did you follow me out here from town to harass me, Mr. Robicheaux?”

“Is that what I’m doing? Harassing? I thought we were just having a friendly conversation.”

“Then your conversational skills need to evolve past the Neanderthal stage.”

“I don’t plan to do a lot of conversing. Two brief statements should cover everything. One, I don’t like the idea of my brother’s death being made into tabloid entertainment. Two, I sure as hell don’t want the details surrounding his murder being manipulated by Dr. Norman Guilliot.”

“Murder? The police report indicates that your brother’s death was suicide.”

“Yeah, well don’t go laying your money on what the cops say, Ms. Pierson.”

“What makes you think Dennis was murdered?”

“Not think. Know.”

“What makes you know?” she asked, trying to sound only mildly interested.

“I was with Dennis last night. He had plans and eating a bullet wasn’t one of them.” John stepped closer, but the fury he’d exhibited when he first arrived seemed to have settled into a brooding pain that glazed his eyes and made them dark as night.

The mood switch tangled Cassie’s emotions. Had he concocted some bizarre murder plot in his mind to keep from facing the fact that his brother had taken his own life, or did he know something he wasn’t saying? Was it possible that the sleepy bayou town of Beau Pierre harbored a cache of frightening secrets?

“If I were you, Ms. Pierson, I’d get in that car and drive back to New Orleans, find some nice little story about the mayor or concentrate on the city’s plague of potholes.”

“What is it you want from me, Mr. Robicheaux?”

“Nothing. I’m only suggesting you not become one of Dr. Guilliot’s pawns.”

“You surely aren’t accusing Dr. Guilliot of killing your brother.”

“Look around you,” he said, motioning toward the broad estate beyond the ornate gate. “The gold mine of the patron saint of the scarred and wrinkled rich. My brother was a lowly, dispensable anesthetist, a nice scapegoat for Ginny Flanders’s death. You figure it out from there.”

Finally he released her from the power of his hypnotic stare and walked back to his pickup truck. He climbed behind the wheel and drove away without a backward glance.

She stared after him, feeling as if something more than a conversation had passed between. The guy had uncanny powers, a prowess at seducing the mind that bordered on the paranormal, but that didn’t mean his accusations were on target.

Still when she turned to stare once again through the massive iron gates, she felt a sense of foreboding creep into her bloodstream and raise the hairs on the back of her neck. This had nothing to do with her, but deadly secrets had a way of entangling anyone who stumbled into their path.

And if there were secrets, she was certain John Robicheaux of the dark eyes and fiery Cajun blood was part of the mystery.

Either way Cassie felt sure she hadn’t seen the last of the man. She’d reserve judgment until later on, whether that was good or bad.

JOHN HAD KNOWN the reporters would start pouring into Beau Pierre before Dennis’s body was good cold. That’s why he’d done his homework, picked out the best one to pull into his murder theory. He knew the sheriff would try to downplay it, and Guilliot’s lawyers in the Flanders’s trial definitely would, but John had no intention of letting that happen.

He’d decided the Crescent Connection was the way to go. The magazine had clout and they’d eat up a controversy like this, gnaw on it and give it so much attention, the sheriff would have to conduct a real investigation. That’s why he’d asked Lily Robert down at the café to let him know if someone from the Connection showed up asking questions. Not much went on in Beau Pierre that Lily didn’t hear about.

He hadn’t expected the reporter to be female—or pretty—but it didn’t matter to John. He’d said his piece, planted the thought, and that should do it.

Cassie Pierson. The name sounded familiar. Pierson. As in Drake Pierson, Flanders’s high-priced, fancy talking attorney. Damn. That’s why her name sounded familiar. He’d read an article on the infamous attorney not long ago, and it had mentioned that his ex-wife was a reporter, even called her by name.

All the better. Drake Pierson would surely notice his ex’s article and he’d play the suspicion of murder to the hilt.

I’ll make Guilliot pay, Dennis. I’ll make the sonofabitch pay. And if it’s not him that killed you, I’ll find the man who did.

He’d see that justice was done. But that wouldn’t bring Dennis back. The pain of that hit again, the force of it almost doubling him over.

“MURDER.” The word rolled off of Olson’s tongue at their Monday morning meeting, and his lips settled into the kind of thoroughly satisfied smile some men might link to sliding their tongue over a dip of Häagen-Dazs ice cream.

Cassie stared at him, amazed once again at the way he transformed from a dull, robotlike creature into a canty, euphoric dynamo the second the possibility of a juicy story made an appearance. Patterson Olson was nearing forty but possessed that nondescript agelessness that let him pass for any age between thirty and fifty.

His muscles were no more defined than Cassie’s, though he was lean with thick, brown hair and a classic nose. None of his features set him aside as particularly handsome or unattractive, his most noticeable flaw being a chin that seemed to collapse into his neck.

He picked up a pen, drew a page-size question mark on the top of a yellow legal pad, then pushed the pad across his desk and toward her. “There’s your story!”

“A question mark?”

“The question. Suicide or murder?”

“There are no facts to back up a murder claim.”

“We’re not trying the case, Cassie. We’re giving our readers information to arouse their curiosity and titillate their minds. They can make their own judgements.”

“Based on unfounded rumors.”

“Based on facts you’re going to gather for us and on information provided by the brother of the victim—a man with his own fascinating story and shaded past.”

“Are you sure we’re talking about the same John Robicheaux?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know who he is?”

“Would I be asking if I did?”

“He was a brilliant trial lawyer. He almost convinced me once a guy was innocent, and I knew for a fact he was guilty.”

“Then you know John Robicheaux personally?”

“Professionally. I was working for the Times Picayune when he was practicing. I interviewed him a few times.”

“What was he like then?”

“Abrupt when it suited him. Persuasive when he needed to be.”

“Manipulative?”

“Do you know a trial lawyer worth his fee who isn’t?”

“Why did he quit practicing?” she asked, still finding it hard to imagine the guy had practiced criminal law.

“Ever heard of Gregory Benson?”

She tossed the name around in her mind. “Doesn’t sound familiar.”

“It was eight years ago.”

“I was twenty-four and finishing up my master’s in journalism at the University of Texas back then.”

“Benson kidnapped a ten-year-old girl in south Mississippi and killed her. Only he kept her alive for a few days, raped and tortured her repeatedly before he finally drowned her in the Pearl River.”

“Don’t tell me John Robicheaux got that guy off.”

“Not that time, but he had just six months earlier—won an innocent verdict on rape and murder charges against Benson in the death of a young teenager in Slidell.”

“Sonofabitch.”

“Yeah. That’s what a lot of people said. John didn’t say anything in his own defense, just gave up his practice and left town.”

“I don’t blame him for taking down his shingle and moving back to the swamp. I don’t see how he can live with himself.”

“He was a lawyer, Cassie. He did his job.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Don’t go all rigid and righteous on me. This is a big story, the kind that can get Crescent Connection the type of clout we’re looking for. And that will require your being friendly to the guy. Keep him talking to you.”

“In other words, you want me to suck up to him.”

“That’s one way of putting it. And that’s just the beginning. I want you to dig into every aspect of the situation. Find out who Dennis was dating, who he might have talked to about Ginny Flanders’s death, if he had a drinking or a drug problem. Snoop into every niche and corner of his life, or at least the life he had until the wee hours of Saturday morning.”

“That won’t be easy. The population of Beau Pierre is primarily Cajun. They’ll bond together against an outsider.”

“Then don’t be an outsider. Become a fixture in Beau Pierre. Get a room down there. Hang out with the locals. Make yourself available. There’s always someone who will talk.”

“You’re not serious about my renting a room down there, are you?”

“Serious as a street flooding in May. Keep me posted on everything. I’d like a couple of stories before Saturday’s print deadline. Hell, if this is as big as it sounds, we might even do a special issue on the ‘Beau Pierre Mystery.’ Sales numbers could swell by a hundred thousand. Dr. Guilliot. The Reverend Flanders’s dead wife. John Robicheaux’s past. And a possible murder. We’ve got it all.”

And Olson was going to start salivating any minute—which was reason enough to clear out of his office. She’d go home, pack a few things, then drive down to Beau Pierre and try to find a decent motel with a vacancy somewhere in the area.

But first she had a phone call to make.

Back in her office, Cassie called information and requested the phone number for Minden High School. She’d given up on the idea of joining her mother in Greece, but all the talk of scandals and murderous secrets was upping her apprehension level, probably unnecessarily so.

Her mother was perfectly fine, off with an old high school friend on the adventure of a lifetime. And at fifty-nine, it was about damn time.

Once she had the number, Cassie called the school and made her request.

“Could I ask why you need that information?”

“I have a lost mother,” she said, teasing, but was immediately sorry she’d put it that way. The words had an ominous ring to them and they seemed to hang in the air after she’d blurted them out.

She explained about the trip in as few words as possible, focusing on the fact that she couldn’t locate an itinerary. Then she gave them both her mother’s maiden name and Patsy David. “I’ll feel better if I can talk to my mother and be assured that the trip is going well. So if I can get a contact number for Patsy David, I’d really appreciate it.”

“I understand. I’d be worried half to death if it was my mother, but then she’s never gone farther than Shreveport without Dad. Did you check the Minden phone directory for a phone number for Patsy David?”

“I did. There was no such listing. That’s why I thought I’d see if you had some kind of alumnae records that include a current contact number.”

“We don’t that I know of, but I’m new here. Give me a few minutes and I’ll see what I can find out. Would you like for me to call you back?”

“No, that’s okay. I’ll hold.”

Cassie scribbled a few notes as she waited, her mind shifting back to John Robicheaux. She tried to picture him pleading a case in front of a jury, imagined that hard body in a suit, the tie a little loose around his neck, his dark eyes peering into those of the jurors.

“Are you certain you have that name right?”

“Patsy David, class of ’64. That’s her maiden name, but I understand she never married.”

“That’s right. Patsy David from the class of ’64 never married.”

“Do you have a current name or address for her?”

“Patsy David is dead, Ms. Pierson. She died in a car accident her senior year of high school.”

CHAPTER FOUR

CASSIE PICKED UP the postcard, this time checking the postmark. It had been mailed from Athens, Greece, on the fourteenth of May, five days after her mother had left Houston. She picked up the second one. Santorini. Mailed May 20.

Her mother had clearly lied about her traveling companion, but not her destination. But if she wasn’t with Patsy, who had she gone with and why had she felt the need to lie? Could this possibly be a romantic tryst far from the prying eyes of anyone who knew her?

Cassie tried to picture her mother in the arms of a man other than Butch Havelin. The image was too ludicrous to jell. But then, how much did she really know about her mother these days? She’d been so caught up in her own problems with Drake that she’d seldom gone home for visits and she couldn’t remember the last time she and her mother had actually had a conversation about anything more important than plans for holidays or a sale they were having at Nieman Marcus.

But, a lover? It was extremely unlikely.

The phone rang, startling Cassie from her troubled trance. She grabbed the receiver. Surely it was the school secretary calling her back to say everything she’d told her a few minutes ago was a mistake.

“Hello.”

“Is this Cassie Pierson?”

A male voice, rich with a Cajun accent. “Yes. How can I help you?”

“I understand from Lily and Robert you were in Beau Pierre yesterday asking questions about the Magnolia Restorative and Therapeutic Center.”

“I was. Who is this?”

“Dr. Norman Guilliot. I’m assuming you’re interested in the center as a reporter rather than a potential guest.”

“I’d like to do a story on Magnolia Plantation for the Crescent Connection. We’re a cutting-edge magazine that focuses…”

“I’m familiar with the magazine. If you’re coming out in the hopes of digging up dirt, then don’t waste your time. There is none.”

Yet he’d bothered to call her when she hadn’t even left a message. First John Robicheaux, now Dr. Norman Guilliot, both going out of their way to look her up. A suspicious happening when dealing with articles involving lawsuits and now possibly a murder.

“No dirt,” she said. Unless, of course, she found some. “I’d love to talk to you and do a feature article on your clinic.”

“In that case, I’ll be happy to meet with you and discuss the center. I don’t have surgery scheduled today, so I can see you this afternoon if you like.”

“How’s one o’clock?” Cassie asked, wanting to act before he changed his mind.

“Fine. Just press the call button and identify yourself when you arrive. I’ll alert the staff to expect you.”

“Then I’ll see you at one,” she said.

“I should warn you ahead of time that confidentiality is a basic tenet of Magnolia Plantation, so certain areas of the center will be off-limits. You won’t be allowed any contact with the guests.”

“I understand.”

Off and running, at least as far as the Beau Pierre investigation was concerned, but the planned meeting with Dr. Guilliot did nothing to allay her concerns about her mother. Touring Greece. Having a great time. The postcards said so.

But if everything else about her trip was a lie, then the postcards could be more of the same. Having a great time. Wish you were here.

Cassie wasn’t convinced that either statement was true.

THE FIRST FLOOR had a large reception area and just past that a series of small offices. The back of the first floor was guest rooms, or so Cassie was told. She didn’t get to tour that part of the house.

The second story had a large, airy sitting room with a TV, a baby grand piano and clusters of comfortable chairs. The dining room was there as well, with a long antique table and several small round tables. And once again there were patient rooms that she was not allowed to tour.

But while the first two floors seemed a Lucullan holdout from the days when ladies had worn full skirts and binding corsets and had danced beneath candled chandeliers, the third floor left no doubt that this was a state-of-the-art surgery center.

“So this is where the miracles take place,” Cassie said, as they departed the elevator and started down a spotlessly clean hall, one bereft of the elegant antique furnishings that had characterized the lower floors.

“Interesting that you put it that way,” Dr. Guilliot answered. “Modern surgical procedures are nothing short of miraculous. Think how archaic medicine was at the time this old plantation was built.”

“But apparently all cosmetic surgeons are not created equal. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have patients coming to a clinic tucked away in a little town like this.”

“I like to think I’m worth it, and I’m sure our facilities for follow-up care are second to none in the world.”

“Exactly how does that work? Are the patients required to stay here for a certain period of time after surgery?”

“I require a one-week stay for major procedures such as face or forehead lifts. Many patients opt to stay longer, some until the swelling and bruises have completely disappeared. That can take as long as six weeks. Once the bandages and draining tubes are removed they’re basically guests in this beautiful, restful setting for the rest of their stay, though I do see them for regular checkups while they’re here.”

“Do you have male patients as well as female?”

“Certainly. Men like to look their best, too, especially those in the public eye. Entertainers, TV personalities, politicians. We get them all right here in Beau Pierre.” The doctor pushed through a set of double doors, then stood aside and waited for her to enter. “We have two operating rooms. This is the first one.”

“You surely don’t operate on two patients at once.”

“No, but occasionally Dr. Walter Gates uses this facility, as well.”

“I didn’t realize that.”

“See, you’ve learned something already.”

“But doesn’t he ordinarily work out of Touro Hospital in New Orleans?”

“Normally, but I feel that a surgeon must have a narrow field of specialization if he expects to be one of the very best at what he does. I stick to facial and neck surgery, but if a patient is interested in other types of cosmetic surgery, Dr. Gates will come here and provide pretty much anything else the patient desires.”

“So a patient can get the works without leaving Magnolia Plantation.”

“Exactly.”

“Was Ginny Flanders planning to have additional surgery done?”

He wagged a finger at her. “No discussing the case. Strict orders from my attorney.”

When they left the operating room, Dr. Guilliot took her through the recovery area, then led her to a closed door at the end of the hall. “This is my private office,” he said, opening the door and revealing a sun-filled room with plush beige carpet and off-white walls.

Obviously a second office, since she’d seen the one on the first floor where he examined and met with new patients. This one was smaller, cozy actually. The large mahogany desk was polished to a brilliant shine and a silver frame held a snapshot of two girls who appeared to be in their early twenties. She guessed them to be the daughters he’d fathered with his first wife.

They talked for a few minutes about the center, including its excellent reputation. When the talk turned to staff, Cassie saw her opportunity. “You must be very upset about the death of your anesthetist.”

“What do you know about Dennis Robicheaux?” he asked, his eyes narrowing and taking on an intensity that intrigued her.

“Basically what was in the newspaper, that he shot himself in the head. That he’d been the one to administer the anesthetic to Ginny Flanders.”

“Both true, I’m afraid.”

“Had he been with you long?”

“Five years, but I knew him before that. He did a clinical with me before while working on his CRNA. He was an excellent anesthetist and a good friend.”

“You must have been shocked to hear of his suicide.”

“I was quite upset and still am. We’re all very close here at the center, Cassie. Is it okay to call you that?”

“Cassie’s fine.” He didn’t, however suggest she call him Norman. She started to anyway, just to see how he reacted, but didn’t want to do anything to aggravate him before she got everything out of him that she could. “Did you have any suspicion that Dennis was contemplating suicide?”

“Certainly not. If I had, I would have seen that he got counseling—and that he hadn’t gone out drinking with his brother that night. If he’d had more family support instead of…” Dr. Guilliot hesitated as voices and laughter drifted in from the hall. “Better if I don’t get started on John Robicheaux. And it sounds as if the rest of the surgical team is in the lounge. I’ll introduce you to them.”

Cassie would have loved to hear more about Guilliot’s theories on John Robicheaux, though in the end she’d make up her own mind about the man, as she would about Norman Guilliot.

They joined the staff in a small lounge area at the very end of the hall. It was basically an oblong kitchen, consisting of a long wooden table with eight chairs, a counter, cabinets, a microwave and a refrigerator.

Cassie made mental notes as Guilliot introduced the staff. Angela Dubuisson was the instrument technician, a registered nurse who’d been with Guilliot for twenty years. Cassie guessed her to be in her mid-forties. Her hair was the color of onyx, and she wore it in a square cut that fell just below her cheekbones, with long bangs she’d pushed to the side and caught in an amber-colored barrette.

Her eyes were slightly darker than her hair, her lashes long and natural, her complexion smooth. She didn’t wear any makeup, except maybe a light dusting of powder over her nose and a pale pink lip gloss. She didn’t say much except to agree with anything Dr. Guilliot said.

Susan Dalton, the circulating nurse, was pretty much the opposite. She appeared to be in her early thirties and had short blond hair that curled about a heart-shaped face. Her eyes were a deep blue and seemed to be dancing behind mascara-laden lashes. Her nose turned up ever so slightly at the end. Perhaps some of Dr. Guilliot’s handiwork. She talked with her hands and eyes, as well as her mouth, and her voice sounded as if she might burst into giggles at any second. Where Angela’s femininity was understated and gentle, Susan’s was exaggerated, like sparks from Fourth of July fireworks.

Roy Baskins was the temporary anesthetist. At least forty and slim with a face that looked as if it might actually break if forced into a smile, he was clearly not part of the group and seemed to prefer it that way.

Fred Powell was the most difficult member of the staff to get a handle on. He was in his late twenties or early thirties, a fellowship assistant who’d been with the group since January. He was nice-looking, polite, but seemed a tad stuffier than the rest of the group. She knew from media coverage of the trial that he hadn’t been at work the day Ginny Lynn Flanders had died. Lucky him.

“Anyone know where I can rent a room for a week or so?” Cassie asked when the conversation lagged. Guilliot’s expression went from friendly to guarded in a matter of heartbeats, but he didn’t respond to the question.

“I’m not looking for anything fancy,” she added. “Just something clean and convenient.”

“I don’t think you’ll find anything in Beau Pierre,” Susan said. “There’s nothing but those cabins back of Suzette’s. I’m sure they smell like dead fish, and you’d have alligators to greet you when you came home at night.”

“Why are you looking to stay in Beau Pierre?” Angela asked.

“We’re doing a feature article on the town. I’d like to get a feel for the place and get to know the people who live here.”

“That should take about an hour,” Roy said.

“You can drive back to New Orleans in about two hours,” Susan said. “That is where you live, isn’t it?”

“I drive over from Houma every day,” Fred said. “That’s not a bad drive and you can find decent places to stay there.”

“I’d rather be closer,” Cassie said, though she didn’t care for a cabin that smelled of dead fish, or for the company of alligators.

“Will you only be here for a week?” Angela asked.

“Maybe less.”

Angela looked to Guilliot then back to Cassie. “My mother and I have a large house. It’s old, nothing fancy, but it’s only about ten minutes from here. You can stay with us for a week if you like.”

The lounge grew quiet at Angela’s offer. Evidently the others were as surprised by it as Cassie.

“I’m certain Cassie would prefer a place of her own,” Dr. Guilliot said, his tone tinged with authority.

He was right. She’d have much preferred a place of her own, but an invitation into the inner circle of the surgery team was too good to pass up, especially since it was obvious Guilliot didn’t like the idea.

“I’d love to stay with you, Angela.”

Angela directed her gaze to a half-eaten salad that sat on the table in front of her. “On second thought, it’s probably not a good idea. My mother has a tendency to wander the house at all hours of the night. She’d probably keep you awake.”

“I can sleep through anything. And I won’t be any trouble. I’ll take my meals at the café in town and I’ll be out most of the day.”

Angela looked to Guilliot again. He nodded as if giving approval, providing Cassie with additional insight into the workings of the interpersonal dynamics of the staff. Guilliot was king. The others were loyal—or maybe not-so-loyal—subjects.

At any rate, it was clear Cassie’s visit to the plantation had come to a close. Guilliot was still charming on the surface, but Cassie felt a chill now that hadn’t been there earlier, and the conversation went from a lull to stone silence.

Suicide or murder?

Suddenly the question seemed to have as many facets as the plantation had rooms. This might prove to be a very interesting week, but as Cassie was escorted out of the plantation, she had an idea that it was the last time she’d be welcomed into the inner sanctum.

The king had granted her one audience, no doubt to make certain she presented him and the center favorably. Now she was on her own.

CASSIE WAS STILL pondering the suicide or murder question as she left the plantation grounds and started back into Beau Pierre. The almost two hours Cassie had spent with Dr. Guilliot had done little to further her investigation into the matter and had given her nothing to spark the article Olson wanted by Saturday.

She needed some real insight into Dennis, needed someone who knew him well to open up and tell her what had really been going on in Dennis’s mind before Friday night.

Her best bet would be an ex-girlfriend, someone who knew all and was no longer emotionally connected with Dennis or involved in the Flanders v. Guilliot case.

And she needed to talk to John Robicheaux. There was clearly no love lost between him and Dr. Norman Guilliot. That in itself had the potential for a fascinating cover story if she could get facts and anecdotes to back it up. The darkly handsome fallen Cajun attorney. The prestigious, charismatic Cajun surgeon who was in the middle of the most publicized lawsuit since the Edwin Edwards trial that sent the former governor to prison. This was as good as it got in the world of reporting.

Yet it didn’t fully claim Cassie’s mind. Nothing would until she found out why her mother had lied to her and Butch about her trip. She’d put off calling her father, but she couldn’t put it off any longer. She drove until she came to the bait/convenience shop she’d spotted on her way out. Her throat was dry, and she needed something cold to drink before she got her father on the line and hit him with the news.

She walked into the shop, took a diet soda from the cooler and exchanged a few words with a gnarly clerk in a stained white T-shirt and baggy jeans before walking to a slightly lopsided picnic table outside the shop. From there she could see the still, murky waters of Tortue Bayou. A row of turtles sat along the bank as if waiting for their ship to come in and a stately blue heron fished in the muddy water, lifting its feet high with each careful step.

Cassie slapped at a mosquito that had settled on her arm, then punched her dad’s office number into the keypad of the cell phone, silently praying that for once he’d be in.

“Conner-Marsh Drilling and Exploration. Butch Havelin’s office. May I help you?”

“It’s Cassie again, Dottie. Tell me Dad is in.”

“He’s on the other line. If you can hold on, I’ll see how long he’ll be.”

“I can hold, but tell him the call is urgent.”

“How urgent? Have you been in a wreck?”

“Not that urgent, but I need to talk to him as soon as possible.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

A minute later Dottie informed her that Butch would return her call momentarily. She lingered at the picnic table, drinking her cold soda and wondering if her mother had to go through Dottie every time she wanted to talk to her husband. If so, that could explain why she hadn’t bothered to call from Greece. It didn’t, however, explain why there was no itinerary and no Patsy David.

BUTCH STARED at the phone, dreading making the call to Cassie. He was almost certain this had to do with her mother, a subject which he’d much prefer to avoid. “What’s up?” he asked, once he had her on the line.

“It’s Mom, Dad.”

He groaned inwardly. “Did you talk to her?”

“No. I never located an itinerary. I don’t know how to tell you this, Dad, but Mom didn’t go to Greece with Patsy David.”

“Of course, she did.”

“Patsy David is dead, has been since their senior year in high school.”

“You must have her confused with someone else, Cassie.”

His irritation grew as Cassie detailed her discovery. He’d never thought the Greece trip fit his wife’s personality, but he hadn’t questioned Rhonda too much about it. He’d been too glad to see her go.

“If you know what this is about, Dad, just level with me.”

“I don’t have a clue. Not a damn clue.”

“Were you and Mom having problems?”

“If we were, I didn’t know it.”

“Did she seem upset when she left? Distant? Aggravated?”

“No more than usual.”

“What do we do?”

Nothing as far as he was concerned, but he knew Cassie wouldn’t settle for that. “The postcards all say she’s having a wonderful time,” he said. “And she’ll be back in two weeks. I say we just wait until then to try to find out why she felt she had to lie to us.”

“But what if something’s wrong?”

“Why would you think something’s wrong?”

“She lied to us about who she went with. She didn’t leave an itinerary, and she hasn’t called.”

“That’s your mother for you. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out why she does things the way she does. But it sounds to me as if she wanted some time alone. I think it’s only fair we respect that.”

“I’d feel a lot better if I could talk to her.”

“She knows where we are if she wants to talk.”

“So you think we should do nothing?”

“Right. Just let it ride. If I hear from her, I’ll give you a call. If you hear from her, you call me. And in the meantime, don’t worry.”

“I’m not sure I can do that.”

“Try. So, tell me, what big story are you scooping now?”

He only half listened as Cassie told him about Dennis Robicheaux’s death. His mind was on Rhonda. He wasn’t worried, not in the sense Cassie was, but he did wonder what the hell was going on with his wife.

She could have found out about him and Babs, though he didn’t see how that would inspire a trip to Greece. An argument, maybe even a showdown, but not a trip to Europe—unless this was a prelude to divorce.

Talk about gumming up the works. He had no interest in splitting up his 401K at this stage in his life, and if Babs was named in the divorce proceedings, it could cause a lot of talk at Conner-Marsh, a company that wouldn’t want even the whisper of a scandal involving its CEO and one of its female supervisors.

An old Beach Boys song knocked around in Butch’s head after he’d hung up the phone. Help me, Rhonda. Help, help me, Rhonda.

He wasn’t sure just what form that help should take, but for starters, she could find happiness and fulfillment in Greece and just not bother to return. He’d miss her sometimes, but he could live with it.

CASSIE TRIED to adopt some of her father’s optimism but decided the only way she’d be able to get her mother off her mind was to jump into the job at hand. So as much as she dreaded dealing with the sexy, arrogant Cajun, John Robicheaux was her next logical interviewee.

She had an idea that anyone in town could tell her where he lived, including the fishy-smelling guy inside the store. She finished her drink, tossed the empty can into a rusted trash barrel and walked back inside.

Maybe the fallen attorney would be in a better mood today. And maybe Jupiter would collide with Mars or the bars on Bourbon Street would stop selling liquor on Mardi Gras Day.

CHAPTER FIVE

CASSIE SLOWED as she passed Suzette’s. The roadhouse was a low-slung, wooden structure with a tin roof. It looked as if it might have been a bright yellow at one time, but the paint was faded and peeling and the facings around the windows were literally rotting away.

There was a row of rental cabins along the bayou just as Susan had said, half-hidden by cypress trees and palmetto plants. They were rustic at best, but some looked to be bordering on total ruin. She imagined them crawling with spiders and stinging scorpions, with slimy black water moccasins slithering through the swampy grass just outside the doors. Definitely not a place for a city gal like her.

She wondered if John Robicheaux’s habitat would be much different. The guy in the bait shop had referred to it as a trapper’s shack and warned her to be careful with the same level of caution to his tone she would have expected if she’d said she was going skinny-dipping with a family of alligators.

From being one of the hottest defense attorneys in New Orleans, and probably the state, to living in a shack in the swamp was quite a backward jump. Penance, she suspected, for unleashing a fiendish sex pervert on an innocent little girl.

The sun slid behind a cloud as Cassie turned from the narrow asphalt road onto a dirt one bordered on either side by swampland. There was no shack. In fact there was no sign of human life anywhere, and she had a sudden impulse to turn around and get the hell out before what was left of the road dissolved into the watery morass.

Yet Dennis Robicheaux had chosen to end his life standing in just such a soggy swamp. At least, that was the sheriff’s version. But even if you were set on ending it all, why spend the last few seconds of life sinking in the mud instead of sitting behind the wheel of a nice, dry car?

Had he been doing penance, too—for a mistake that had killed Ginny Lynn? Lots of questions. No answers.

The old dirt road grew more difficult to maneuver. Cassie dodged potholes and bounced across deep ruts and places where the road had all but washed out. It crossed her mind that the guy in the bait shop might have seen her as a nosy reporter and sent her on a journey to nowhere.

She shouldn’t have had that soda. They always went right through her, and her bladder was already protesting the rough road and screaming for relief.

She was about to turn around when she saw John’s black pickup truck stopped in the middle of the road. She threw on her brakes, thinking something was wrong, then realized that her earlier fears were actually true. The road narrowed to a path just beyond the truck and disappeared into the bog.

She spotted the house a few yards off the road. It was built of split cypress logs and stood on short piers that put it just above the swampland that surrounded it. A couple of weathered rockers, some metal pails, a foam cooler and a jug of Kentwood Springs water sat on a porch that swayed to the left like a woman who’d carried babies on her hip for too many years.

Cassie studied the shell walkway that led to the porch as she crawled from behind the wheel of her car. Reaching back into the car, she grabbed her black notebook and started down the path, swatting a vicious mosquito the size of a small helicopter as she did. Like the mosquito, she was unannounced and uninvited. But probably not unexpected.

An attorney, even a nonpracticing one like John, knew that the word murder and the mention of Dr. Norman Guilliot’s name would lure a reporter just as surely as his smelly bait lured fish onto his hook.

She rapped on the door of the cabin and it creaked open as if she were being welcomed by some invisible phantom. The eeriness settled in, creeping up her spine like a wet chill on a frosty January morning. She wasn’t on the edge of civilization. She’d passed that about five miles back. It didn’t get more isolated than this.

Cassie rapped again, then eased the door open a few more inches. “John Robicheaux?” She called his name tentatively. “Anyone home?”

No answer. But the door was open and she really needed to go to the bathroom. Not that there weren’t plenty of places to go outside if she dared venture off the shell path. She didn’t dare.

She stepped into a rectangular room that apparently served as dining room, den and study. Her gaze settled on a massive claw-footed pine table that stretched along a row of side windows. There was a floor-to-ceiling homemade bookcase on the opposite wall, filled to overflowing with both hardcover and paperback selections. Two worn recliners and a mock leather sofa with a split in the armrest were clustered on the side of the room with the bookcase. A large wooden desk sat against the back wall.

The desk was empty except for a stack of newspaper clippings and a computer. The computer stood out, as if it had been plucked from the modern world and placed in the time warp that had trapped the rest of the surroundings.

The floorboards groaned as Cassie crossed the room to a closed door she really hoped was a bathroom. Luckily, she was right, and indoor plumbing had never looked so good. She took care of business, then washed her hands and dried them on an earth-colored towel—a towel that smelled of soap and spices and musk.

She turned half-expecting to see John behind her, but it was only the smell of him and the fact that she was surrounded by his personal things that made the sense of his presence so strong. His razor, his toothbrush, an open bottle of over-the-counter painkillers.

She left the bathroom and walked to the bookshelf. She scanned the titles and found everything from the classics to Dennis Lehane’s newest thriller. Not one law book, though, or anything to suggest John had ever been a practicing defense attorney.

She picked up a homemade cypress frame from the top of the bookshelf and studied the photograph. Two boys, one a teenager, the other a preschooler, stood between an elderly man and woman. The man had on black wading boots, a shirt that was open at the neck and a pair of baggy jeans. Gray-haired, too thin, but smiling big enough to show a row of tobacco-stained teeth. The woman was plump, with salt-and-pepper hair pulled into a chignon on top of her head.

There was no doubt that the oldest boy was John. Hair as black as night, a cocky smile and the same eyes that had seemed to see right through her yesterday. And already sexy, though he couldn’t have been more than seventeen or so when the picture was taken. And the younger boy must be Dennis. Adorable, with the same thick dark hair and cocky smile. There were quite a few years between them, yet she got the impression from John that they’d been close.

The Robicheaux brothers. From the swamps to law school and anesthetist training and on their way to the good life. Now Dennis was dead. And John was…

Actually she wasn’t sure what John was except angry, grieved and incredibly virile. And in spite of the fact that the door had been unlocked and had opened at her knock, she still felt uneasy at being here when he wasn’t around.

Reporters who are scared to take chances end up with predictable, boring copy. That was pretty much the basic rule of journalism, the no guts, no glory edict of reporting. She’d always had more balls than most of the male reporters she’d worked with, but still the sheer isolation of this place was getting to her.

She’d about convinced herself to clear out when she heard footsteps on the porch. She turned as John pushed through the door, then propped a hand on the facing and glared at her. “Why don’t you come in, Cassie Pierson? Make yourself at home?”

His stance and voice were intimidating, but she kept her back straight and her own voice just as level. “The door was open.”

“Cajun hospitality.” Only he didn’t sound the least bit hospitable.

She smelled the whiskey on his breath from across the room and knew she didn’t want to get into an argument with him. “Your truck was here,” she said. “I assumed you were around somewhere.”

“I’m around. What do you want?”

“To talk.”

“I’m listening.”

He wasn’t going to make this easy. “Do you remember our conversation yesterday?”

“I’m half-drunk, not addled.”

“Do you still think Dennis was murdered?”

“I still know that he was. I also told you yesterday that Norman Guilliot would manipulate you and use you the same way he uses everyone else in town. That didn’t keep you from going back out there today.”

“What did you do? Pay someone to follow me around? Stalk me yourself?”

“Beau Pierre’s a small town. News gets around.”

“Then I guess there are no secrets in Beau Pierre?”

“Oh, there are plenty of secrets—just not for long. They’re like splinters buried under the skin. They fester awhile, but eventually work their way out. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to do some more drinking before this day gets any further along. If that offends you or bothers you in any way, feel free to find your way out of here the same way you found your way in.”

“You say Guilliot wants to manipulate me, and that could be true, but what about you, John? Why do you need me?”

“Me? Need you? You’ve got things way wrong, sweetheart.”

“Not the way it looks to me. You followed me out to Magnolia Plantation yesterday and informed me that your brother had been murdered.”

“And that means I need you?”

“You knew I wouldn’t just walk away from the implication of murder.”

“Of course not. No reporter walks away from a chance for a juicy story.”

“But you didn’t go to just any reporter. You came to me and claimed Dennis was murdered. You got my interest, so now give me facts. Level with me, and I’ll give you the press you’re obviously looking for.”

LEVEL WITH HER. He’d love to, only his mind was so damn twisted today he had trouble putting his thoughts in any kind of sequence that made sense. Caskets and flowers. Tombstones and burial plots. He’d been through this before not so long ago, but then it had been for his grandparents.

The actions were basically the same, but they felt so different. Dennis should have lived years longer, should have had the chance to grow old right here in Beau Pierre.

He poured himself a drink then one for Cassie. Whiskey. Straight up, so it would burn clear down to his belly. He drank his down, then poured two fingers more. Carrying both drinks, he crossed the room and handed one to Cassie.

“To leveling,” he said, clinking his glass with hers. “And to justice.”

“To justice,” she agreed. “And truth.”

“Truth—or a story? Which is it you’re after, Cassie? You have to make up your mind, you know.”

“I’d like both.”

He looked up from the whiskey and into Cassie’s eyes, the color of spring leaves, ardent, not yet jaded by the heat and merciless beatings of life. He’d been like that once, though he could barely remember it now.

Cassie sipped at the whiskey, making a face as it slid down her throat and probably hit her stomach like hot wax from a dripping candle.

“Why do you claim Dennis was murdered when the evidence points to suicide?” She tossed her head as if issuing a challenge, and wispy tendrils of curly auburn hair danced around her cheeks.

John wondered if she had any idea how sexy she looked when she did that.

“Why murder, John?” Cassie repeated.

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