A Grave Mistake
Stella Cameron

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For Julian and Gerry Savoy, proud Cajuns

who answer all those questions.

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Epilogue

Prologue

Near Chartres Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1:35 a.m.

His feet were wet.

Shit, why hadn’t he kept his mouth shut back there? Why had he asked for money?

He could still hear it, the jazz in that place, music as old as this town, older, the rhythm thumping, but not as fast or hard as the blood at his temples.

The goons they’d sent after him were too slow to have seen for sure where he’d taken a right off Chartres Street. Deep in a doorway, neon lights laying bright stripes on the soaked street, Pip Sedge couldn’t hold the breaths that burned his lungs, hurt his heart, so he pulled up one side of his suit jacket and plastered it over his face, hoping to muffle any noise.

The rain had all but cleared the late stragglers away.

Maybe he’d lost those two guys. He didn’t hear anyone running, but two hundred and fifty pounds or so of muscle—and fat—apiece had to make the going tough.

Shut the hell up. Shut up! His brain wouldn’t be quiet, it yammered at him, slid into a screaming chorus that went on and on. I’m a dead man. I’m a dead man. I’m a dead man. They would put a bullet in him. Chase him closer to the river, farther and farther from any help, shoot him in the back and leave him facedown in stinking mud and garbage.

Help? What help?

Quiet. Hush. Just keep cool.

Moving from the doorway could be suicidal. For all he knew there were eyes watching for his first step into the open.

He felt the air change, the spaces around him contract, and he strained to separate sounds. I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy. It was a horn player’s riff somewhere inside an old Dixieland number that could have been the soundtrack from a black-and-white movie. A shutter creaked back and forth, a little slam in between. The rain subsided to a patter.

Shadows gathered before his eyes. He blinked. Shadows shifted on the walls that faced him across the narrow road. Bars on windows shimmered wet. He took in air and held it, and his guts turned to water.

He could stand and wait to die, or he could try to outrun two lumbering punks with guns. And he could hope, just a little, that they wouldn’t see him until he was out of range, or that they didn’t see him at all.

If he got out of this, he already had a new plan. It had come to him earlier when he’d overheard those jerks congratulating themselves. He should have thought about it a long time ago.

Revenge time.

Pip dared to peer from the doorway, back toward Chartres Street. Nothing. No cartoon heavies hunched together, weapons cocked. Now he wanted to laugh, to scream.

He ran. One downward step and another, and he hit the sidewalk almost brushing the wall as he went. The newspaper blocking the holes in his shoes was sodden—what was left of the thin leather soles, sodden. At least they didn’t make much noise.

The rain fell heavier again, slanted into his face, but didn’t cool the blinding heat swelling in his head. He opened his mouth and let his breath drag in and out, lengthened his stride, punched the seething air with jabbing fists.

Asking for money, letting it out that he had proof he was owed, had been a crazy move. He’d launched into a diatribe about ruining reputations and putting people in jail, even though their sneers should have shut him up. He had threatened some of the most dangerous people in New Orleans.

His left ankle turned. Pain shot through his foot, up his leg, but what the hell, he could run with no legs if he had to. He ran on. With freedom in your sights, you could limp at the speed of a Jaguar.

The ankle buckled at every step. He stumbled and caught at a street-sign pole. He wanted to be sick.

There could be a bone broken down there.

He was almost on top of a small cross street. He was going to make it. His breaths turned to sobs. His eyes filmed over. He would make it. There wasn’t any sound of heavy men running in hard shoes. All he heard through the roaring in his brain was the approach of a car from the left.

He paused, panting, his veins fluttering, and checked his pockets to make sure he hadn’t dropped anything. He hadn’t. Bending over at the curb, his hands on his knees, Pip waited for the car to pass. Damn them all. He’d taken too long to find a way to get back what he’d lost. He’d owed them big, but not so big they should have taken everything he had.

He had to show Zinnia he was man enough to fix things.

The first shot caught him in his injured leg. He screamed and began to crumple forward.

The second shot punctured his right shoulder, drove straight back. He heard the bones explode, felt the flesh burn, saw red blossoms like flames. He couldn’t see.

The third shot…

1

Toussaint, Louisiana

Jilly Gable had a man to confront. Maybe this time Guy Gautreaux would keep his big mouth shut and let her finish what she had to say before he piled in and told her what to do and why, and reminded her of his earlier warning that the reappearance of her long-lost mother could be bad news.

Guy had trouble with the concept that a woman could have a change of heart after thirty years of not giving a damn about a person. He didn’t believe people changed; he thought that as years went by they became more of what they had always been. In this case, once a bad mother, eventually a really bad mother.

Jilly pulled her aging VW Beetle into the forecourt at Homer Devol’s gas station—the last gas station on the way out of the town of Toussaint, and first on the way in, depending on whether you were going or coming and which side of the sign you looked at.

Homer usually went to pick his granddaughter up from school in the afternoon, leaving Guy to tend the gas station and the convenience store beyond, where a string of colored lights outlined the roof. The lights stayed on all day and into the evening, all year.

Pots of showy geraniums hung beneath the eaves with ivy trailing to the ground.

Jilly looked around. Nothing on two legs moved. With her head out of the window, she called, “Homer! Guy!” then she screwed up her eyes and listened. No response. She looked quickly toward the road. All day she’d had a sick sensation that she was being followed, watched. Last night she had got a warning, even if it wasn’t direct, that someone was watching her movements. Who better to advise her than Guy, a New Orleans Police Department homicide detective on extended leave?

Way to the left, closer to the bayou, Homer’s split-timber house stood on stilts with its gallery facing the bayou across the sloping back lawn.

She got out of the lime-green Beetle and went through the useless exercise of trying to take in a breath. Hot didn’t cover it. Heat eddies wavered above the burned-out grass and did their shaky dance on tops of the roofs. From where she was she could see cypress trees crouching, totally still, over Bayou Teche. Beards of Spanish moss hung from branches as if they were painted there, and the pea-green surface of the bayou might have been set-up Jell-O. Even the gators would be sleeping now.

She reached behind her seat and hauled out several bakery boxes tied together with string. If she didn’t get them inside fast, the contents would be gooey puddles. Jilly owned All Tarted Up, Flakiest Pastry In Town, one of Toussaint’s favorite gathering places. Her brother, Joe—a lawyer—had been her partner until his marriage the previous year. She’d been able to assume the loans and she loved having the business to herself.

Guy’s beat-up gray Pontiac hugged a slice of shade beside the store, but she saw no sign of the man, either in the gas station or the store. He didn’t live out here and mostly stayed away from the house.

A walk toward the bayou ended her search. He stood on the dock, a cell phone clamped to his ear, his arms crossed, and his face pointing away from her.

A door slid open behind her and she jumped, swung around and barely kept her balance. Homer’s fish-boiling operations were housed in this other building, one you didn’t see until you got close to the bayou. Ozaire Dupre walked out and turned to slide the doors shut, but not before the dense smell of boiling fish rushed free. Ozaire, caretaker at the church, man of many schemes, also helped out with Homer’s boiling and drove the giant pots of fish, and sometimes vats of his part-time boss’s own special gumbo, to backyard barbecues or any event looking for real Louisiana cooking.

Ozaire saw Jilly and frowned, shook his big, shaved head dolefully. “Better you keep me company today, girl. That one down there—he’s one big, black cloud, him.” Ozaire fooled some people with his short, thick, slow-moving body. In fact, the man’s strength was legendary in the area, and his speed if he chose to hurry.

A part-grown black mutt with long, silky hair loped around his legs but soon left to investigate Jilly.

“You say that every time I come,” Jilly pointed out, scratching the dog’s velvet head. “Who’s this good-looking fella?”

“That Guy Gautreaux’s a big, black cloud all the time, that’s why I say it.” Ozaire looked smug. His scalp shone in the sunlight and sweat ran down the sides of his round face and heavy neck. “Never got nuthin’ good to say. I reckon he’s got a curse on him. Bad-luck boy, that one.”

“You should be more careful what you say, you,” Jilly told Ozaire. “A man could get in trouble for saying things like that.”

“Get on. I’m just sayin’ it like it is. Last woman that boy got close to is in a cemetery.”

Last year Guy’s longtime girlfriend had been murdered in New Orleans. He blamed himself.

“Later,” Jilly said, exasperated. She held out the boxes. “We had extra at the bakery. They’re fresh. Put them in the store case for Homer to sell.”

Ozaire took the load from her and gave a rare grin. “An’ I thought you was bringin’ me a treat.”

Jilly wagged a finger at him. A bug flew into her eye and she dealt with it, then pointed at him again. “You get one. I’ve counted those pastries, I’ll count them again when I come back up. There better be no more than one gone.” Give the man the chance and he’d be hauling the stuff off to sell to whoever was using the church hall at St. Cécil’s.

“That there’s a dog what’s a prize, that’s what he is,” Ozaire said, as if the topic had never been pastries. “Can’t keep ’im, no sir. My Lil says four dogs is enough. But this guy’s too good, got too much character to drop him at the pound and have ’em put him down in a couple of days.”

Jilly had been the recipient of Ozaire’s earlier attempts to place strays. “Hope you find a home for him,” she said. The man’s love of dogs made her feel more kindly toward him.

“Reckon I have,” Ozaire said. “With your prickly friend, huh? Put in a good word, huh? For the dog’s sake, and for that miserable son of…” He let the rest trail off.

Jilly shook her head. “You’re too hard on Guy,” she told him, and headed toward the dock. She turned and walked backward a few paces. “I’m going to check on the pastries, mind.”

Jilly hurried downhill.

Guy was leaning over, pushing off one of the rental boats. A couple of guys with fishing gear started the outboard and phut-phutted into the middle of the channel. With the phone still clamped to his ear, Guy stood up and saw Jilly. He gave her a brief wave and started meandering back along the dock. They’d met the previous year when an investigation brought him to Toussaint and he’d become her friend, her best buddy, and she needed to talk openly with him about what was on her mind. He had never attempted to turn their relationship into something deeper, but Jilly had seen the hot looks he quickly hid—she wasn’t the only one frustrated by the sexless hours they spent together.

“Take your sweet time,” Jilly muttered. How could a man walk that slowly? “Just let me squirm as long as possible.” Do I admit I’m scared and I need to tell you about it? If she did, he’d probably jump all over her, say she was putting herself in danger. Get out of the situation. End of discussion.

Guy stood still, staring up at her, and continued his conversation. After the death of the woman he had loved he refused to go back to the NOPD, but they were holding a place for him. Guy was a darn good detective. Meanwhile, Homer had needed someone reliable and asked Guy if he’d work at his place—just to fill the time until he moved on. Guy accepted the job and gave it his all. He seemed grateful to Homer and treated his own place at the station as a trust, even though Jilly knew he had enough money to live on if he wanted to hang around his rented house and do nothing until he decided on his next steps.

Jilly didn’t want Guy to leave his haven in Toussaint, even though he had made it plain he didn’t intend to stay for good.

He stuck the phone back on his belt and speeded up. A tall, rangy man, in faded-out jeans and a navy T-shirt with holes in it, he could cover the ground quickly when it suited him. He met Jilly before she could put a foot on the dock.

She looked up at him, at his unreadable, almost black eyes, and wished she hadn’t come. Ozaire hadn’t been joking about the cloud.

“I wasn’t expectin’ you,” he said, and winced. He almost always said the wrong thing to Jilly, but not because he didn’t want to tell her how he felt each time he saw her. He guessed he’d never be polished.

“I’m not staying,” Jilly said. Not when he looked as if he wished she was somewhere else and couldn’t even manage to crack a welcoming smile.

He cocked his head to one side and took off his straw Stetson, then held it by the fraying brim. “You must have had somethin’ on your mind,” he said. “No reason to come this way otherwise.” And he wished she’d say something he’d really like to hear, like her creep of a mother had packed up and left town again.

“You can make a person feel pretty unwelcome, Guy.” She didn’t dare say it hurt her when he behaved as if she was a stranger with bad timing.

He ran a deeply tanned forearm over his brow, blinking slowly.

You got used to a man’s little mannerisms, got to like them even. Next he’d rake his fingers through his dish-water-blond hair. Yep, that’s what he did.

“Guy, can I ask your honest opinion about something?”

He swallowed and rubbed the flat of his right hand back and forth on his chest. Jilly, you can ask me anything. If I was any kind of a man, I’d get over what I can’t change and find a way to be what you need, what you want me to be. “Ask. Maybe I can be useful—maybe not.” He sickened himself. She wanted intimacy with him, the kind that never let her doubt he was on her side. But he was scared to give it to her. Stuff had happened, deadly stuff, to the only woman he’d gotten really close to.

Yeah, Jilly thought, she just wanted him to reassure her that she shouldn’t question her mother’s motives for being back in Toussaint. And she’d like him to put her mind at rest about one or two things that made her antsy when she visited the old Edwards Place, where her mother’s second husband, Daddy Preston, had set his wife up in lavish style. She’d dissuaded Edith from renaming the estate, so Edwards Place it remained, but Jilly didn’t like the house much. Too big and eerie, filled with memories and sad stories Edith insisted on relating.

Then there was what happened last night. Guy could help her get through that if he had a mind to. All he had to do was tell her it was no big deal, and that he was on her side.

Jilly gave Guy a little smile, then dropped her face so he couldn’t study her so closely anymore.

Would it be so dangerous to give her a hug? he wondered. A brotherly hug to take away some of the trouble he had seen in her eyes? He wasn’t the only one who had suffered loss. Jilly’s former fiancé turned out to be a felon and was destined to spend the rest of his life in the pen.

Jilly moved closer. She could feel him, always could when he was anywhere around.

“Okay,” he said, and put a hand on her shoulder. She wasn’t a fragile woman, but he felt clumsy around her. “Tell me about it, cher.”

It was just his way to be reserved. He cared what happened to her, the same as she did about him. “You don’t like it that Edith came back,” she said.

“I never said that.”

“You said she’d make trouble in the end. That sounded pretty much as if you didn’t think she should have come here.”

Had he said that? “I don’t think that was exactly what I said, but if you want me to take it back, I will. She’s been here awhile now and she hasn’t hurt you so far as I can tell.”

“Having her show up was a shock.” Jilly rested her forehead on his chest. “I’m still getting used to her. She’s not what this is about. Forgive me for being a whiny wuss, but I’m worried about something.” Guy looked down at the top of her head, at her thick, blond-streaked brown hair that reached her waist. A yellow ribbon, tied a few inches from the bottom, kept it behind her shoulders. That had been his old partner, Nat Archer, on the phone. Before long he would show up here, even though Guy had warned him previously that he didn’t want them seen together in Toussaint. From the sound of Nat’s voice, something big was going down. Ozaire was already backing a truck out and would be on his way back to St. Cécil’s within moments. Jilly ought to be gone before Nat arrived, too.

A half-grown black mutt with legs too long for its body ran back and forth and Guy made a note to call for the dogcatcher when Jilly left.

Jilly looked up at him. “I said I was worried.”

“And I’m waitin’ to hear why.”

“You are so tough, Guy Gautreaux. You never give an inch and you’re the only person I have to share this with.”

“You have Joe. I’d have thought your brother would have the best insight on this one.”

Hurt, disappointed, she tried to shrug away, but he exerted a little more pressure on her shoulder and she couldn’t go anywhere. “Joe isn’t objective about this. He hates Edith. He isn’t into giving people second chances. But then, he’s my half brother. Edith isn’t his mother.”

“Joe Gable has his head screwed on right.”

“Damn it, Guy.” She punched his unyielding chest. “I think you’d side with anyone but me.”

He shook her gently. “Could it be that Joe and I have your best interests at heart? Could that be it? Joe might remember picking you up when your dad was long gone, who the hell knows where, and the people he hired on the cheap to look after you kicked you out because he’d quit sendin’ money. You were fourteen years old. Joe might harbor a grudge against the so-called mother who walked out and left you with that angry son of a gun who fathered you and left you just like she did.”

“Yes,” she said. “That could be. Sorry I bothered you. Joe and Ellie won’t be back from Italy for weeks, anyway. Forget it. It’s no big deal.” Except that she felt she could choke, and wished her brother and his wife weren’t so far away.

Yes, it was a big deal. He could feel that it, whatever it was, could be a very big deal. “I’ve got a clumsy mouth, you know that? When it comes to your old man, I’d gladly help Joe feed him to a gator.”

The suspicious sheen on her light hazel eyes turned his stomach. If she cried, he was a goner.

“I want to hear what you came to say and you aren’t leavin’ till you tell me,” he said in a hurry.

Jilly met those black eyes of his and he made a valiant attempt to give her a reassuring smile. “Okay,” she said. “No, it isn’t okay. It’s going to sound stupid. Forget it.”

He put his mouth by her ear. “Listen to me carefully. You and I will stand right here until you come clean.” He was starting to get a really nasty feeling that this could chew up some time and prayed Nat would take longer than expected to arrive.

“You know there’s a live-in staff at Edwards Place?” she said.

“Only because you told me. I haven’t been invited to tea yet.”

She looked at him sideways. “There’s a new man who came from New Orleans a couple of days ago. I think he’s a bodyguard.”

He didn’t know how he felt about that—if he felt anything at all. “Edith and that woman who came with her are pretty much alone. Could be they feel safer with a man watching out for them.”

“When this one arrived—he came in on the chop-per—I think Edith was as surprised as I was. That he was there, I mean. She knew him, even though they didn’t say much to each other. He just went to a room as if he knew it was going to be there, and moved in.” There was no reason to mention that Edith’s daughter-in-law, Laura Preston, threw a tantrum at the sight of the man.

“Mr. Preston flew in, too,” Jilly went on. “I was glad to meet him finally.”

“Is that right?” All of Guy’s nightmares were coming true. The so-called happy family wanted to draw Jilly in, to change her.

“Yes. He’s a nice man. He couldn’t have been kinder to me. He said he hoped I’d let him think of me as the daughter he never had.”

“Did he?” Guy had turned ice cold. Goose bumps shot up his arms. “Is he staying at the house now?”

“He had to go back to New Orleans, but he said he’ll be spending a lot of time here. I can’t get used to the idea of someone having a helicopter pad in their garden.” She held out her left arm to show him a thick gold bracelet with a diamond clasp. “I feel funny about it, but he gave me this. He gave one each to Edith and Laura, too.”

Guy felt his nostrils flare. Every alarm bell went off. What could this guy possibly want from Jilly?

“Very nice,” he said. “But the bodyguard stayed?”

“Yes. Daddy Preston went back alone.”

Had he misheard her? “What did you call him?”

She reddened. “That’s what everyone calls him. At least, Edith and Laura do.”

“So you call him what? Daddy?”

“No. I wouldn’t be comfortable—even though he did ask me to. I call him Mr. Preston.”

If he had the right, he’d tell Jilly to stay away from that place. He didn’t have the right and wasn’t likely to. “You were talking about the new bodyguard. Did he seem threatening to you?”

“No-o. Not at first.”

He gripped both of her arms. “Explain that.”

“I think I was followed back to my place last night. It was getting dark but when I got out of my car in the driveway, a car drove by slowly.”

“And you believe this was the same man who just moved into Edwards Place?”

She hadn’t been able to see his face, just that he was big. “I don’t think so. But the car had those black windows.”

If he showed any sign of the sudden panic he felt, she’d be terrified. “That doesn’t mean it had anything to do with you, then.”

“When I was inside, I went upstairs and looked out of a window. A man was standing close to a tree at the corner, watching my house. I could have missed him if he hadn’t drawn on a cigarette.”

Guy set his back teeth. “He didn’t have to be looking at your house—and he didn’t have to have come from the car you saw being driven past.”

“No. Except I just knew he was looking at my place and I could see the back of the car around the corner.”

Guy put his hands on his hips and expanded his lungs. He felt an artificial calm in the air as if the world was about to split wide open and nothing but filth would pour out.

He wanted Edith Preston, and anyone remotely attached to her, out of Toussaint, preferably yesterday.

“You were right in the first place,” Jilly said. “I’m over-reacting. I need to head back into town.”

And without a word of reassurance from me, ass that I am. “I’ll walk you to your car. Good-lookin’ mutt running loose up there. I’ll call the pound.”

Jilly stopped so suddenly, he’d taken two steps before he halted and looked at her. “What is it?”

“You call the pound on that dog and I’ll never speak to you again.”

Shee-it. “It’s lost, Jilly. Kindest thing to do—”

“Is have it picked up and gassed? Oh, no, sir, not that sweet-natured pooch. Look at that trusting face. He’s just what you need to take your mind off yourself now and then.”

Guy felt a bit wild. “I need that trampy dog?”

“You surely do, Mr. Gautreaux.” She clapped her hands at the hound. “Here, boy. Here, boy. Come and meet Guy.”

“Damn it, Jilly, don’t do that. I can’t have a dog.”

“Sure you can. What else do you have in that miserable shotgun house of yours? Not furniture, that’s for sure.”

“I like—whoa.” The dog arrived, bypassed Jilly as if he’d never seen her, now or before, and landed against Guy’s middle. His long tongue lolled out of his mouth, he slobbered, and looked for all the world like he was grinning.

Guy patted the dog’s head and said, “Down, boy,” which the critter did. He sat beside the man as if he was giving an obedience demonstration.

“Look at that, he—”

“Never mind the dog. I’ll see he’s taken care of. Let’s go sit at a picnic table. I want you to tell me what you really need from me. And you can kick me if I put my foot in my mouth.”

She blinked. He was trying to reach out to her. Jilly couldn’t find the words she really wanted to say. “The first thing you need to do when you adopt a dog is to get him looked at by a vet. He’ll need all of his shots, and—”

Guy’s pinched-up expression stopped Jilly. “I said, forget the dog.” He took off toward the back lawn.

Jilly followed him. She surreptitiously patted her thigh and the big pup gamboled past her to lope along at Guy’s heel. Guy walked easily, his big shoulders and arms swinging.

“I’ll get us a cold drink,” Guy called back.

Something about him suggested he was in a hurry. “Not for me, thanks,” Jilly said, although her mouth felt like sandpaper.

They sat, facing each other across the table, the dog a couple of feet distant with his liquid eyes firmly on Guy’s face.

“Let’s get to it,” Guy said. He wasn’t going to grow a silver tongue so he might as well wade in.

“Why don’t you like Edith?”

He gave her a long, considered look. “I like you. I don’t like anyone who hurts you. That should cover it.”

“She’s changed.”

“People don’t change.”

Jilly hitched at the thin straps on her yellow sun-dress. One of the nicest things about Edith’s mother having been part black was that Jilly had inherited skin the color of pale gold coffee. Edith had it, too. Guy’s eyes flickered toward her thumbs, where they were hooked beneath her straps, then away again. Most of the time he treated her like one of the guys, but there were those moments that let her know he didn’t entirely think of her that way. Those moments tended to make her legs wobbly.

“I already told you how I felt about that, Jilly,” he said. “People changing. But I understand you wanting to believe something different.”

“I don’t like to disturb you, Guy, but I am going to ask you something. As long as there’s nothing to suggest Edith is some kind of criminal who came here just to ruin my life, could you try to back me up? Give me some confidence until I know, one way or the other, if she wants to make things up to me like she says she does?”

“How do you intend to find out these things?” he asked her. “One way or the other? Do you wait till you get dragged in too deep to get out? Or until the man you insisted watched you from across the street decides to wait for you inside your house one night?”

“Stop it!”

“I can’t. I can’t pull any punches. What if Sam Preston decides you could be dangerous to him?”

She crossed her arms. “I couldn’t be. That’s silly.”

“You don’t know that.”

“What have you got against the man? He’s married to my mother, that doesn’t make him a criminal.”

And there she had him. “You’re right.” He couldn’t tell her Joe Gable had already confided that he didn’t trust Edith’s supposed reason for being in Toussaint, or that he thought all the flash was to impress Jilly for some ulterior motive. Joe had speculated that Edith might know about an inheritance Jilly was about to get—a big one—only between them they couldn’t come up with a plausible benefactor. “Preston’s an antiques dealer in the Quarter, right?”

“Yes,” Jilly said. “I told you that before.”

“I guess you did. I can’t help thinking about the guy seeming to be stinking rich. I suppose there must be a lot of money in antiques.”

“I suppose there must. Guy, all I want is for you to tell me everything’s okay,” Jilly said, feeling empty. “Just be there for me while I allow it all to settle down.”

“Everything’s okay,” he said, his eyes burning in their sockets.

“No! Please don’t patronize me. I know what I’m asking is kind of silly, but I won’t find out what happened between my parents, not for sure, unless I can take this chance I’ve been handed and make the best of it.”

He let out a long sigh. The dog, with his long fur shining like sealskin, had slid his head onto Guy’s thigh. He stood quiet, like a statue—as if he could be invisible if he tried real hard.

Guy gave the mutt a rub and that earned him a look of adoration. “I don’t want to patronize you, Jilly. I’d be a fool if I did, because you’re one smart woman.” Why would she want to know anything more about the senior Gables’ dysfunctional relationship?

“Could you try to be happy for me?”

“I’m happy for you.”

“You’re doing it again.” She blinked and her eyelashes were wet. “Repeating what I say in that flat voice you can put on. I’ve finally got what I’ve always wanted, a family. Can’t you be glad about that?”

“You’ve always had Joe. Now you’ve got a sister-in-law, too, and Ellie’s one of the best. You’ve always had a lot of people in this town. You’ve got…” Whoa.

“Yes? What else have I got?”

“I’m not the same as family, but I hope you think of me as a good friend,” he told her rapidly, feeling the hole he’d dug open up beneath his feet. He smiled at her and reached for her hand. “Jilly, you’re the best friend I’ve got and you know it. That’s why I worry about you so much.”

She smiled back. “Thank you. Forget what I said about that man. You’re probably right and he wasn’t looking at my house at all.”

He’d let it go at that, even though the thought of Daddy and his expensive gift made him crazy.

Jilly got up from her bench and came around the table. She slipped her arms around his neck, pressed his face to the soft, bare rise above her bodice, and hugged him. She rested her cheek on top of his head and rocked a little.

What was he supposed to do? Be real careful, he guessed. His hands fitted around her waist and came close to touching at the back. “You are a sweet thing, Miz Gable. You’ve had too much hardship and it’s time for the good stuff to come along for you.” If he had his way, it would, even if it probably shouldn’t be with him.

Her face dropped to his neck.

This could so easily go further than he had promised himself it ever would.

Lifting her with him, he got up and swung her around before setting her feet firmly on the ground. She smiled up at him and he smiled back, tapped the end of her nose with a forefinger, tried not to stare at her mouth.

Over her head he saw a black Corvette slide past the gas station and come to a stop. The driver maneuvered until the nose of the car pointed uphill.

Ready to get away fast, Guy thought.

Jilly felt his attention move away and looked behind her. A man got out of a flashy black car. A man with a linen fedora tipped over his eyes, and a shirt so white it made him look even darker than he was, especially where the sleeves were rolled back over his bunched forearms. His pants were dark, his tie loosened, and he carried a suit jacket tossed over his shoulder.

Guy waved, shouted, “Some wheels you’ve got there.”

“Hard work and clean livin’ pay off,” the other man said, walking toward them. “Less vices a man got, the better he lives, and I got no-o vices, Guy.” The grin was as white as the shirt and he was one spectacular looker. The dimpled grooves beside his mouth only got slightly less defined when he turned serious and looked at Jilly.

“We get good cell reception down here, huh?” Guy said in the most obvious attempt at distracting someone that Jilly had ever heard.

“Yeah,” the man said, nodding.

Jilly wished she could sit down again. Guns were a part of life in these parts, but this man wore a shoulder harness with the kind of ease that yelled “cop,” and she didn’t have to work hard to figure out this was someone Guy had worked with.

She didn’t like to be reminded of his other life.

The man’s eyes went from Guy to Jilly and back again. “Son of a gun, Gautreaux, you never did have manners. You gonna introduce the pretty lady?”

His easy manner made Jilly grin.

“Jilly’s a friend of mine,” Guy said. “She was just leavin’. Take it easy as you go, kid.”

He might as well have said, get lost. A creepy sensation shot up her spine and she felt sick. “Yes, right.” She backed away, perfectly aware that the newcomer was just about as uncomfortable as she was. He shot out a hand and she took it, shook it and tried not to wince.

“Nat Archer,” he said. “Guy and I go way back. Like I said, he’s got lousy manners.”

“Jilly Gable,” she told him, and waved her hand at waist level before running uphill toward her car.

“Hey, Jilly,” Guy hollered. “I’ll call you later. Maybe we can get a late bite.” And he had to make sure she didn’t mention Nat to anyone else.

“Not tonight,” she called back. “I’ve got plans.”

2

“You might need some new hookup lines,” Nat said when Jilly was in her car and driving away. His deep voice was pure, tumbled gravel. “That girl didn’t buy your ‘get lost now but I may have time for you later.’ No, sir.”

Guy didn’t intend to give anyone the pleasure of seeing how teed off he was, especially smart-mouth Archer.

“Jilly, darlin’—” Nat used his slow, most reasonable drawl “—this is my good old friend, Nat Archer. He’s come to discuss a little business. I don’t want him sharing a minute of my time with you. Make yourself comfortable awhile, cher, but first say, yes, you’ll join me for a sexy little dinner for two later. I’ll—”

“Can it, Archer.” He couldn’t help grinning. “You don’t change, do you, partner? Jilly and I understand each other.”

Nat pushed his hat to the back of his head. “You don’t say? Guy, I think something’s breakin’. I didn’t want to say too much on the phone, but it may be time for you to come back where you belong. The department needs you.”

Where did he belong? Once he thought he knew, but he didn’t anymore. “What’s up? Last time you called, some girl’s daddy was after you with a shotgun.”

Nat punched Guy’s arm. “Trust you to mangle history. The girl was a woman in her thirties and her brother was the goon on my tail. I spoiled their scam. They thought they had a patsy with deep pockets—me. They’re guests of the State.”

“Such excitement,” Guy said, rubbing stubble on his jaw. “Makes a quiet type like me feel giddy.”

Nat quit smiling. “Is there somewhere we can go where we won’t be interrupted?”

“It’s quiet here,” Guy said, “but it can pick up anytime. There’s just me till Homer gets back. I could call someone in so we could go to my house. It’s the safest place I can think of.”

Nat nodded. “I admit I’m tryin’ to connect some long wires here. But we could be about to skate over the thinnest ice you and me ever stepped on. That’s saying somethin’. I’m not sure—I can’t be yet—but it could be somethin’ big is about to blow up in Toussaint. And if it does, yours truly is going to be right here with you.”

Curiosity strung Guy out tight. “That so?” He had never known Nat to embellish things.

Calling Ozaire back didn’t rate high on Guy’s list, but he wasn’t about to bother Homer, who would be over at Rosebank—a resort hotel owned by his daughter-in-law, Vivian Devol, and her mother, Charlotte Patin. Homer’s son, Spike, helped run the place with his wife, while he also kept the Toussaint sheriff’s department running. Each afternoon Homer picked up Spike’s daughter by a previous marriage, and took her home from school. Only Wendy could turn Homer into a softie.

“You got a bug somewhere he didn’t ought to be?” Nat asked. “Looks like you got pain.”

Guy’s response was to call Ozaire, who was so enthusiastic about returning to work he made Guy suspicious.

“Go on ahead to my house, I’ll join you as soon as he gets here,” Guy told Nat. Then he had a thought that started him punching numbers on his phone again. “What the hell am I thinking of?” he muttered. “How’s she supposed to know if I don’t tell her? She needs to know now, not later.” He could not wait to tell Jilly to forget she had seen Nat.

“Aw, you know those aren’t things you tell a woman on the phone. You had your chance to say the sweet nothings in person. You blew it.”

Guy ignored Nat and looked at the sky while he listened to Jilly’s phone ring. She wouldn’t even be back to town by now and she always kept her cell on.

He hung up and stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

“What’s up?” Nat asked.

“You,” Guy said without preamble. “I told you I didn’t want us seen together around here. If Spike, that’s the sheriff and he’s Homer’s son, if he gets wind that I’m holed up with my old partner, he’ll be sure I’m getting ready to leave. He’ll tell Homer. Homer will get mad and fire me because he’ll want to tell me to go before I can quit.”

Nat shook his head. “Why would you care?”

“Jilly needs me here.” He needed her. “And I owe Homer.”

“She already knows about me, man,” Nat pointed out.

“Jilly might not make the connection if… Let it go. I don’t want people speculating about you, okay?”

“O-kay.”

His partner’s attitude galled him. “Look, Nat. You come sashayin’ in, driving a car people around here will talk about. There isn’t always a lot of excitement, see, and they can get pretty imaginative with very little encouragement.”

“Whoa.” Nat held up both hands. “I asked you if you were on your own and you said you were, or would be in a few minutes.”

“I didn’t expect Jilly to stay.”

“Is it my fault she did?”

“This had better be important,” Guy said. “I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

His phone rang and he looked at the readout. “Hi, Jilly,” he said, trying not to sound as relieved as he felt.

“Sorry I didn’t pick up just now,” she said.

“You had a right,” he told her. “I need to ask you a favor. Nat, the guy you just met?”

“Yes.”

The sound of zydeco from her car radio made him smile. She loved the music, and she loved to dance. So did he, with her.

“There’s a real good reason why he wasn’t here.”

“Huh?” She turned off the radio. “What did you say?”

“He wasn’t here.”

“Nat Archer, the knockout guy I just met at Homer’s, he wasn’t there? The one with a voice like warm, tumbled gravel? For goodness’ sake, why don’t you just put things so they aren’t so confusing? You don’t want me to mention Mr. Archer to anyone. Right?”

He blew out a breath in a whistle. “I just don’t have your smooth way with words, cher.”

“You can say that again,” Nat muttered.

Guy reached out and snatched the fedora, jumped on the closest bench, then on the picnic table, and held the hat high.

All Nat did was shake his head slowly.

“You’ve got my word, Guy, you know that,” Jilly said. “But I hope you’ll explain the reason to me.”

Just what he didn’t want to do. “Sure. How about that dinner?”

“Maybe I can fit you in. I…get back! Stop!”

Jilly screamed and, at the same time, Guy heard the gut-churning sound of a collision, breaking glass, buckling metal—and a cacophony of shouting voices.

“Jilly,” he yelled. “Jilly!”

She didn’t answer him.

There was only one road into Toussaint from Homer Devol’s place, so that simplified Guy’s rubber-laying drive. You also couldn’t get lost in the town and you for sure couldn’t miss a car crash, any car crash there.

He saw flashing lights behind him, then heard a siren. “Not now,” he said through his teeth, and floored the accelerator. Almost at once he saw his folly, slowed and pulled over. The cruiser screeched to a stop, slewed behind the Pontiac.

One big “ain’t I cool?” officer took his time getting to Guy’s window. The man’s hand hovered over his weapon and he spread his feet. “Out,” he said, “hands behind your head, down on your face.”

Guy did something he tried to avoid. He smiled at an asshole and said, ever so sweetly, “Afternoon, Officer. I’m Detective Gautreaux, NOPD. Should have put my light on top, but you know how it is with these pricks, think they’re smarter than we are. I prefer to sneak up on ’em when I can.”

He was on thin ice. “Inactive duty” wasn’t a designation that carried weight, and if he told the guy the truth he’d have to run a check. Guy couldn’t afford the delay.

The officer looked uncertain. “Yeah, I know what you mean. You got a badge, sir?”

“In the pocket of my jeans. Left front.” He put his hands behind his head. Because they expected him back at NOPD he’d never been asked for his badge. Carrying the thing was a habit. “I’ll get out.”

The man made up his mind. “You’d best get going. Sorry I slowed you down.”

Guy nodded and took off fast enough to reach Bi-geaux’s hardware store on the outskirts of town and disappear around a corner without ever seeing the cop again. But he had lost at least eight or nine minutes and it was his own fault.

He dialed Jilly’s number again. No answer.

There it was. Toussaint’s very own talking points for the next few weeks. In the intersection of St. Mary’s Street and Main, the only four-way stop in town. A big old burgundy Impala station wagon stood at an angle, one side shoved in, empty holes where the window had been. And a few feet distant where it had come to a stop after bouncing off the Impala, was Jilly’s Beetle. The front had crumpled and popped open, and the damage was what you would expect when the engine was in the rear: the front wheels had moved a whole lot closer to the rear ones. In every direction, sun bounced off broken glass. Gas ran all over the road.

With her head in her hands, Jilly sat on a curb. Guy could see the scrapes from yards away. Father Cyrus Payne, pastor of Toussaint’s St. Cécil’s Parish, owner of the Impala, crouched beside her, an arm around her shoulders.

A deputy Guy hadn’t seen before had his hands planted on his hips while he had a face-to-face discussion with a large, thickset man in a dark suit.

Jilly looked up, saw Guy, and burst into tears.

He parked and got out of the car. Immediately he heard the deputy’s raised voice. “You’ve told me what you saw, sir. You’ll be contacted if we need more information.” The officer’s thin face had turned bright red and Guy wondered if this was his first day on the job.

The other man held his hands loosely in front of him and spoke softly, too softly to be heard.

“No,” the officer said. “You can’t take care of this little matter. We’ve got procedures we follow.”

A small crowd had already gathered and every face was familiar.

Guy went to Cyrus and Jilly and bent down beside them. “Who’s the guy arguing with the deputy?”

With no warning, Jilly’s crying intensified. She covered her face and shook her head, but tears made it between her hands to drip off her chin.

“Cyrus?” Guy looked at the priest. “Jilly’s really shocked.”

Cyrus raised his brows, widened his deep blue eyes as if trying to send a silent message. He indicated Jilly by inclining his head at a sharp angle.

“Jilly,” Guy said. “Jilly, cher, all this will go away. You must have hit something slippery and slid right into Cyrus.”

She bowed lower with her hands laced over the back of her head, and Cyrus shocked Guy by grabbing the neck of his T-shirt and yanking him down. “You mean well,” the priest said into Guy’s ear. “But it would be better if you found out how Jilly is before you analyze the rest of this situation.”

Guy squeezed his eyes shut. “You’re right,” he said. I am a fool and I never was any good with women. She deserves better than me.

“How’re you doin’, Jilly?” he asked quietly. Too bad he couldn’t feel noble for never making a move on her. He wanted to.

“You didn’t hear the crash?” she said, in a choked voice. “I don’t know what happened. Maybe the brakes felt mushy. I don’t understand why you didn’t hear all that noise.”

He blinked a few times. “Of course I did. We were talkin’ on the phone.”

“Then why didn’t you come right away? If you cared… Friends look out for each other.” She brought her left hand down and looked at her watch. “If it had been you, and I knew something bad had happened, I wouldn’t have taken my time getting to you.”

Cyrus actually gave him a sympathetic look. Honesty was the only way of saving his tail here. “I did, Jilly, but I speeded like a fool and got stopped by a cop. If he hadn’t decided to be reasonable, I’d still be there.”

“Oh, Guy.” She looked at him reproachfully. “You shouldn’t have been speeding.”

Cyrus said, “I think I’d better help out the young deputy. I don’t know who the other man is, but he’s making nothing into something. Uh-oh, here comes Patti-Lou, or Lee I guess her name is when she isn’t writing her gossip column.” He got up, slapped Guy’s shoulder and walked away.

“C’mon,” Guy said, taking hold of Jilly’s free hand and pulling her up. “Do you hurt anywhere? Hurt bad like something’s broken?”

She shook her head and leaned to look around him. “I don’t want anything in the Trumpet about this.”

Guy turned enough to see Lee O’Brien, cousin of Reb O’Brien Girard, Toussaint’s medical examiner and only doctor, pushing a tape recorder under the deputy’s nose. “Forget it. Whether you like it or not, you’re in the paper. Can’t really blame the woman—most days she doesn’t have a whole lot to write about.”

“Except gossip.” Jilly groaned, touched the side of her head and mouthed, “Ouch.”

“You did hurt yourself,” Guy said. “You hit your head.”

“A bump. It’s nothing.”

“I expect someone already made it over in the aid car to check you out.”

Jilly shook her head again.

“Hey,” Guy yelled. “Officer, get over here. And you can get lost,” he added, pointing to the suit. He ignored Lee O’Brien, her tape recorder and her expression of breathless anticipation.

“Guy,” Jilly whispered, “that’s the bodyguard from Edwards Place—the new one I told you about.”

“I don’t give a shit if he’s Darth Vader.” He cleared his throat. “Pardon me for the language, please. He’s interferin’ where he’s got no right to be.”

Cyrus had reached the pair. He said a few quiet words and the deputy followed him back toward Guy and Jilly. The bodyguard also approached, his flat, freckled face impassive. He walked slowly and ignored Lee O’Brien, who trotted beside him and talked cheerfully.

“You didn’t send for an aid car?” Guy said to the deputy. “You’ve got casualties. Who did you call so far?”

Again the man turned red. “I got real busy, sir.”

“First day on the job?”

“Second. Nothing happened yesterday, and—”

Guy checked out the youngster’s name tag. “Tell the gawkers to move on, Hall. Cyrus, Jilly, do we want the aid car?”

They both said, “No.”

“Dr. Reb’s going to expect a visit from the pair of you.”

“Later,” Jilly said.

Deputy Hall had developed a much bigger voice and he herded citizens on their way. “Look,” Guy said. “You need to give a report to him, exchange particulars with each other, make sure pictures are taken and get the tow truck here. Call your insurance companies. Either of you have a problem with sending the cars to Mortie’s?”

“Mortie’s is the only body shop in town,” Cyrus pointed out, and Jilly actually smiled.

“I’m Caruthers Rathburn.” The bodyguard had arrived. “I think I can make this a great deal easier for everyone.”

“Excuse me?” Guy looked the man in the eyes. Standing so close, he could see that rather than freckles on his round face, he had open pores where oil mingled with sweat. “This is a routine traffic accident. No need for anyone to make anything easier.”

“How are you feeling, Jilly?” Lee O’Brien asked. She had the kind of blue eyes that suggested she’d never seen anything worse than a piece of eggshell in an omelette.

“Good, thank you, Lee,” Jilly said. “Give my best to Reb and Marc. We’re finished here.”

Guy coughed.

Caruthers Rathburn reached inside his jacket and Guy’s hand went instinctively for the gun tucked into his belt.

“Wallet,” Rathburn said with a knowing sneer. He pulled out the wallet and eased out a fan of big bills. “I work for Miss Gable’s stepfather. I’ve spoken with him and he insists she’s to go to her mother immediately. Please take this, Father. Use what you need for transportation until we deal with things. I know—”

“No, thank you.” Cyrus looked at the fistful of money pressed against his middle as if it were maggots. “I’m sure things aren’t as bad as they look. We’ll fix any little problems.”

“Father,” Lee said, her blond ponytail flipping as she looked from one person to another. “You don’t have any little problems with that car of yours. How does that make you feel?”

They said she was sharp, Guy thought. You could have fooled him.

Cyrus smiled at the woman and said, “I’ll be glad to talk to you about this, and I’m sure Jilly will, too. But we ought to deal with the formalities, first.”

The way very pretty Lee O’Brien gazed at Cyrus reminded Guy how hard it might be for a priest who looked the way this one did. Women invariably sent longing glances in his direction.

“I don’t think I heard your name,” the bodyguard said to Guy.

“No reason you should. Excuse me.” He turned back to Jilly.

The bodyguard didn’t figure out that he was supposed to get lost. “I have my orders. This is yours.” He gave the bills another push against Cyrus, and when he wouldn’t touch the money, let it slide and flutter to the ground at their feet. “I’ll drive you to your mother, Miss Gable.”

“Thank you for the offer, but I’m going to my shop now,” Jilly said, her face white. “Please tell my mother I’m fine.”

Rathburn only hesitated a moment before walking away, leaving the four of them standing in a heap of money.

“Cyrus,” Jilly said. “We can do this between us. It was all my fault.”

“You don’t say that when you have an accident, Jilly,” Cyrus said.

“You would.”

She didn’t get an argument from Cyrus. When she glanced at Guy he was smiling. Darn it all, anyway, he had the clumsiest mouth in the South, but he also had the best heart—if he’d ever stop burying it in a hole and piling body armor on top.

Wally Hibbs, fifteen-year-old only child of Gator and Doll Hibbs, who ran the Majestic Hotel, arrived on his bicycle, which he stopped by slamming his sneakers on the street. He’d outgrown the bike a long time ago.

“Everything’s okay here,” Cyrus said at once, and Jilly felt good just knowing Wally had the priest and the folks who worked at St. Cécil’s to give him the warmth and welcome he didn’t get at home. Wally hung around with Cyrus whenever he could, and the man had become almost a surrogate father to the boy.

“Who is that man?” Lee asked, her eyes on Rathburn’s back. “He’s got a nasty attitude. He said he worked for your stepfather, Jilly?”

“Yes,” she said, pretending not to see the faces Guy made at her.

Wally’s bike crashed to the ground and he stooped to gather the money. “Can’t just leave this here, Father,” he said. “I saw that man give it to you. Is it true your dad’s the richest man in all Louisiana, Jilly?”

What were folks saying to make him come up with a question like that? “I’m not sure where my father is,” she told him. “I haven’t seen him for years.”

“Your new dad,” Wally said, sitting on his heels to carefully face all the bills the same way. “This is a lot of money,” he said, his eyes round. He started counting, licking the tip of a grubby forefinger now and again.

“I don’t like to ask you,” Cyrus said. “But would you get that money back to Edwards Place?”

“No way,” Wally told Cyrus. “I told you, I saw that man push the money on you.”

“I don’t need or want a stranger’s money.”

Wally looked smug. He wiggled his nose and sniffed. “Is there anything says a stranger can’t give money to the church?” His smile grew wider, showing the space between his two front teeth. “I don’t think the Lord would be pleased with you discriminatin’ like that, not when the church needs new bingo boards and there ain’t—isn’t enough money.”

A frosted beige Jaguar convertible slid to a stop, and a woman wearing large sunglasses and a pink baseball cap over curly red hair trailed her left arm and hand over the top of the driver’s door. Dazzling prisms shot from whatever jewelry she wore on her fingers.

“Jilly?” Laura Preston said, amazement dripping from the single word. “What are you doing here with these people?”

“For those of you who don’t know,” Jilly said, “this is Laura Preston, my mother’s daughter-in-law. Laura and Edith live together at Edwards Place.”

Silence met the announcement. “Laura, please let Edith know I’ll be over to see her later. I’m not hurt at all.”

“Where do you think you’re going with that?” Cyrus said, laughing at Wally, who remounted his bike with a determined expression. He took the money from the boy and walked toward the deputy.

Wally shrugged. “I knew he would do that, but I had to give it a try. Wait till I tell Madge how Father turned down good money when there’s never enough to pay the bills at St. Cécil’s.”

Guy made a grab for the rear of the bike, but Wally shot out of range, heading for Bonanza Alley and the rectory. “Don’t you go mixin’ it up,” Guy yelled. Madge Pollard worked for Cyrus. She kept the parish running and watched over Cyrus, although not like a mother hen. Jilly tried not to think about the complicated friendship Cyrus and Madge had, not often, anyway. Some people just didn’t have much luck when it came to falling in love, and Jilly guessed she and Madge had great men in their lives, only they were the wrong men.

Without another word, Guy walked away. He approached the rucked-up Beetle and looked down through the broken passenger window, at the seat, Jilly assumed.

He dragged open the door and stooped to pick something up from the floor.

Lee said, “Guy’s a nice man but he’s too difficult to read. Too quiet. He’s real easy on the eyes, though.” She cleared her throat and turned a little pink. “You already noticed that, Jilly?”

“Uh-huh.”

On the way back he only broke his stride for a few moments when he passed them. He gave Jilly her cell phone and said, “I’m relieved you’re okay. Take care, y’hear. I’d better get back to it.” His down-turned mouth and narrowed eyes turned him into the stranger she’d seen before and she didn’t like him.

Well, she’d taken all she intended to take from Mr. Gautreaux and she wasn’t taking any more.

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