Warnings flashed like neon signs in Eden’s head…

This wasn’t wrong, it was insanity. “I’m going to regret this,” she murmured. “Big-time.” Then, catching Armand’s face in her hands, she kissed him.

It was a dizzying experience. Wrong, because kissing him made her feel more alive than she had in months. Maybe years. He explored her mouth with a thoroughness that scorched her blood and had her knees threatening to buckle. For a moment, the garden actually did feel magical. And sexual.

“No…Armand, wait.” She made an effort to pull away. “I shouldn’t have, you know, done that.”

“Ah, but you did.” His lips curved against hers. “And you had to know I wouldn’t refuse.”

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! And we have six breathtaking books this month that will make the season even brighter….

THE LANDRY BROTHERS are back! We can’t think of a better way to kick off our December lineup than with this long-anticipated new installment in Kelsey Roberts’s popular series about seven rascally brothers, born and bred in Montana. In Bedside Manner, chaos rips through the town of Jasper when Dr. Chance Landry finds himself framed for murder…and targeted for love! Check back this April for the next title, Chasing Secrets. Also this month, watch for Protector S.O.S. by Susan Kearney. This HEROES INC. story spotlights an elite operative and his ex-lover who maneuver stormy waters—and a smoldering attraction—as they race to neutralize a dangerous hostage situation.

The adrenaline keeps on pumping with Agent-in-Charge by Leigh Riker, a fast-paced mystery. You’ll be bewitched by this month’s ECLIPSE selection—Eden’s Shadow by veteran author Jenna Ryan. This tantalizing gothic unravels a shadowy mystery and casts a magical spell over an enamored duo. And the excitement doesn’t stop there! Jessica Andersen returns to the lineup with her riveting new medical thriller, Body Search, about two hot-blooded doctors who are stranded together in a windswept coastal town and work around the clock to combat a deadly outbreak.

Finally this month, watch for Secret Defender by Debbi Rawlins—a provocative woman-in-jeopardy tale featuring an iron-willed hero who will stop at nothing to protect a headstrong heiress…even kidnap her for her own good.

Best wishes for a joyous holiday season from all of us at Harlequin Intrigue.

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Senior Editor, Harlequin Intrigue

Eden’s Shadow
Jenna Ryan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jenna Ryan loves creating dark-haired heroes, heroines with strength, and good murder mysteries. Ever since she was young, she had an extremely active imagination. She considered various careers over the years and dabbled in several of them, until the day her sister Kathy suggested she put her imagination to work and write a book. She enjoys working with intriguing characters and feels she is at her best writing romantic suspense. When people ask her how she writes, she tells them by instinct. Clearly it’s worked, since she’s received numerous awards from Romantic Times magazine. She lives in Canada and travels as much as she can when she’s not writing.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Eden Bennett—Adopted as a child, she is a ringer for her natural sister—and next in line for the family curse.

Armand LaMorte—A dark and mysterious police detective. He has many secrets to keep.

Lisa Mayne—One of three birth sisters. She discovers her natural father—then is accused of murdering him.

Mary Tamblyn—Youngest of the sisters. Her interests are entirely self-centered.

Maxwell Burgoyne—Biological father to Eden, Lisa and Mary. Did the family curse kill him?

Lucille Chaney—Eden, Lisa and Mary’s birth mother. She has a shady past.

Dolores Boyer—Lucille’s mother. She knows more than she should about many things.

Robert Weir—Maxwell’s business partner. He appeared to gain nothing by Maxwell’s death.

Dali Kafkha—A voodoo queen who believes in curses.

Limping Man—Is he part of the curse, or merely biding his time?

In memory of Catherine (Kay) Goff:

You gave me life.

You gave me love.

You believed in me.

You were the perfect mom.

I love you…

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

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

Prologue

Voodoo child with Carib blood,

And eyes of green. This is foreseen:

The eldest born to eldest grown,

My pain shall bear. Believe. Beware.

For deeds long past chère child will reap,

My vengeance curse, of death—or worse.

The woman’s name was Eva Dumont and she wrote the curse in blood. Her blood and that of the man who was her father.

He had left her mother for another woman. He would pay for that betrayal, as would his offspring.

Her shadow, her curse, would fall from generation to generation. Not one of that tainted line would escape her voodoo spell.

Chapter One

“Mind you don’t make the fillings too white, dear. I don’t want to glow in the dark when I smile.”

“I’ll match your natural color,” Eden Bennett promised, “X-ray that upper molar again, and we’ll go from there.”

“So long as it doesn’t exceed thirty dollars.” The old woman cleared her throat, then asked, “It won’t, will it?”

“Twenty-eight thirty-seven, cleaning included. Open for me now, okay, and try not to swallow.”

The old woman snagged her wrist before Eden could position the wedge. “You’ll be gentle, won’t you? My roots are as weak as my ankles these days.”

Nothing wrong with her grip, though, Eden noted. She patted one bony shoulder. “I work on my grandmother’s teeth, Cornelia, and her roots are three years older than yours.”

Reassured, the woman relaxed into the padded dental chair. She didn’t watch the television Eden had mounted to distract her more squeamish patients, but rather kept her eyes fixed on Eden and her fingers curled tightly in her lap.

She was a sweet old woman, poor as Eden’s patients tended to be on Tuesday afternoons and evenings, but more trusting than many who ventured into her French Quarter office.

Since Cornelia wouldn’t let anyone else do the cleaning, Eden had sent her dental assistant home forty minutes ago. With luck, she’d missed the deluge that was currently making a river of the streets and sidewalks outside.

Eden was just touching her drill to one of Cornelia’s seven remaining teeth when the examination room door burst open. If she hadn’t learned from one of the best, Cornelia’s tooth count would have been down to six.

“Eden, you have to—” The woman on the threshold halted. “You’re still working? Do you know what time it is?”

“It’s 8:27, Mary—” Eden pulled her mask down “—p.m. I won’t be finished until after nine, and no, I don’t have any extra twenties in my purse.”

“I didn’t come looking for money.” Mary offered Cornelia a perfunctory smile. “Mary Tamblyn. I’m Eden’s sister. I didn’t realize patients came here quite this late. Myself, I can’t deal with pain at night.”

Not easily ruffled, Eden motioned at the door. “There’s coffee if you want to wait.”

“But…” Mary’s look of annoyance changed to one of resignation. “Oh, all right, but it’s important this time, Eden, or I wouldn’t be here.”

She really wouldn’t, Eden thought after coaxing Cornelia’s mouth open again. Mary liked the French Quarter well enough, but going to a dentist’s office instead of searching out a freaky party? No way. She must want more than money.

“Your sister doesn’t dress like you, does she, dear? Or look a great deal like you, either. So much blond hair…” Cornelia spoke around the wedge. “She has nice teeth, though. Are they all her own?”

“All but one. An ex-boyfriend knocked out her left incisor a year ago.”

Cornelia made a clucking sound. “Bad relationship?”

“Misdirected racquetball.” Eden replaced her mask and picked up her drill. “Mary isn’t big on sports, or men who play them these days. Okay, no more stalling. Open, and I’ll have you patched up in no time.”

“Will it hurt? I think I can still feel part of my gum.”

“Cornelia, I gave you enough novocaine to keep you numb until breakfast. I’ll go slow. You can pinch my left arm if you feel anything.”

EDEN KEPT HER MIND on her work and off Mary for the next forty-five minutes. By nine-fifteen, Cornelia was scraped, filled, filed and X-rayed. She handed Eden three tens at the door, squeezed her hand and told her to keep the change. Eden watched her climb into her brother’s 1965 Buick Wildcat and tried not to think about how a man with cataracts managed to drive at night in a downpour.

Mary came up beside her. “Those two should be using public transportation.”

Eden winced as Cornelia’s brother ran the right tires up over the curb. “They only have to go twelve blocks.”

“Huh. Big spender, too—tipped you a whole dollar plus change. Thirty bucks—man, you never give me deals like that.”

“You don’t live on a fixed income and have two sons who bleed you for what little pension money you receive.” Eden tucked the bills into the pocket of her pants, stretched as she walked to the rack and removed her lab coat. “So what’s the deal? Did you sell a bunch of pictures and you want me to spring for the champagne?”

Mary stared after the disappearing Buick. “They’re photographs, not pictures, and no, I didn’t. God, I hope I don’t end up like them one day.” Turning her head, she ran her gaze up and down her sister’s body. “Or you, either, for that matter.”

Eden made a quick check of her face and hair in the waiting room mirror. “What’s wrong with how I look?” Other than maybe a little washed out under the bright lights.

Mary shrugged. “Nothing. You’re gorgeous. Every man I date says so. But…” Her expression grew mysterious, and Eden sighed. She recognized the sign.

“‘For deeds long past, chère child will reap, my vengeance curse, of death—or worse.’”

Eden, who’d taken a moment to release her dark hair from its ponytail, gave her head a shake and her shoulders a roll. “Why do you love that old rhyme so much? You don’t believe in family curses any more than I do.”

“I know. But then it doesn’t apply to me, does it? I’m the youngest in our patchwork family.” Mary’s leather pants and jacket creaked as she headed for the door. “Let’s blow this spooky tooth palace. Something’s happened, and you’re the only one who can make it right.”

“I have to clean…” Eden started for the examination room, but Mary grabbed her arm. “I’m not being dramatic, Eden. This is big, or at least it could be, and it doesn’t involve you lending me money. It’s about Lisa.”

Something tightened in Eden’s stomach. Mary wouldn’t hesitate to plead her own cause, but she seldom championed anyone else’s. And she never looked rattled.

“What about Lisa?” she asked. “Is she sick? Hurt? In trouble?”

“The last thing.” Loosening her grip, Mary made a disgruntled sound.

“Okay, look, our middle sister, who pored over the records of every adoption agency in the city, found you, found me and brought us all together ten years ago, was questioned by two cops. They came to the house tonight. They were asking her questions about a man named Maxwell Burgoyne.”

“Someone she’s dating?” No, that couldn’t be right, Eden realized. Lisa didn’t date. She waved the question aside before Mary could respond. “Never mind. Just tell me who he is.”

“You want it straight?”

“Please.”

“Maxwell Burgoyne is our biological father—as in the unknown X chromosome that forms half the link between us.”

Stunned, Eden stared at her. “Lisa found our natural father? I thought he was dead.”

Mary’s red lips curved into a sardonic smile. “He is dead, Eden, deader than Dickens’s ghostly doornail. The thing is, he only got that way two nights ago. Maxwell Burgoyne was murdered in a plantation cemetery seventeen miles outside of New Orleans. And according to the city’s finest, Lisa was quite likely the last person to see him alive.”

THEY WENT TO EDEN’S French Quarter walk-up. It was ten minutes from her office on foot, less than three in Mary’s zippy black sports car.

Lisa had given her the car as a gift two years ago—or so Mary claimed. Eden had a feeling this gift, like so many others, had been bestowed out of guilt rather than generosity.

Not that Lisa wasn’t generous. She loved to give. She donated to several charities that Eden knew of and spent hours every week trying to entice Eden to move in with her and Mary. She would buy them a three-story house in the Garden District, large enough that they could all have private suites.

“I can afford it,” she’d told Eden only last month. “You know I hit the adoption jackpot, and now that my mother and father are both gone, their money’s just sitting there, waiting to be spent.”

“But not on us,” Eden had countered. “Take a Mediterranean cruise, Lisa. Meet men. Flirt, dance, do something that doesn’t involve soil, fertilizer and root rot.”

“I love my garden, and I don’t know how to flirt.” She’d started to take Eden’s hand, but stopped herself as she invariably did. “I inherited a lot of money, Eden, more than Mary knows about or could ever finagle out of me.”

“Invest it then—and I don’t mean in a bigger house.”

“You don’t want to move, do you?”

“Not really. I like my place.”

“It’s very nice, but it’s so small. You can’t spread out or grow bushes or even many herbs. I know you’re used to tiny spaces because of where you lived in San Francisco…”

Which had nothing to do with anything as far as Eden was concerned. Amused, she’d replied, “I grew up in suburbia, Lisa, not the backwoods. My parents left their hippie groove before I finished grade school. My mother actually went back to college and got her degree in philosophy.”

“And now she’s a professor at LSU,” Lisa supplied.

“Was.” Eden had propped her chin in her hands and tried to figure out how many different kinds of flowers were in the vase on Lisa’s kitchen table. “She accepted a position at Florida State last fall, remember?”

“She moved away?”

For a moment, Lisa had appeared confused. That quality of losing her bearings had puzzled Eden ever since they’d met ten years ago. Mary called them day trips. Eden wondered if there might not be more to it than that.

She was thinking about Lisa as she unlocked the wrought-iron gate at street level and climbed the outer stairs to her apartment. Her sister had actually located their biological father. The why of it aside, Eden gave her credit for persistence. By all accounts, including that of their natural mother, the man had died years ago.

“It feels like a thousand degrees,” Mary complained. She’d removed her jacket and now wore only a faux-leather halter top with her tight pants and spiky heels. “Lisa could be in trouble up to her big green eyeballs, and—” Her own eyes widened. “Why on earth are your windows closed?”

“Because Amorin would jump out onto the porch. Then she’d dig up the courtyard garden or get hit by a car, and I don’t want either of those things happening to my cat, that’s why my windows are closed. The ceiling fans are on. But talk to me about Lisa, Mary. What did the police want from her?”

The question had a surly edge, Eden realized. Her experience with the New Orleans force as a whole hadn’t been good. With one member in particular, it had proved disastrous.

But that was a memory for another time—maybe twenty years from now.

It took three shoves, a kick and two thumps with her fist to open her apartment door. Thunder rumbled on the river, and for a moment after she touched the light switch, Eden thought the power was going to fail.

“Just what we need in Hemingway Central,” Mary muttered at her elbow. “A candlelight vigil.” At a look from Eden, she kicked off her shoes. “Yeah, I know, cut the chit-chat. What can I say? There’s background stuff, I suppose, but we both know whatever went down in that plantation graveyard, Lisa didn’t hit Burgoyne on the head and take off.”

Eden tried a second light. It flickered but stayed on. “Is she a suspect?”

Mary fussed with her hair. “She’s a person of interest at this point because, like I said, she’s the last person the cops know of who saw the guy alive. But that’s today, Eden. What happens if they can’t find anyone to pin his death on? It’ll come back to Lisa—or it could. Okay, we’d be talking circumstantial evidence, but Lisa says she didn’t think much of the guy the first time she met him, and I don’t get the impression she was any more enamored after the second meeting. She doesn’t have an alibi for the time of the murder, either, and I can’t give her one because I was out with friends.”

Eden struggled to digest everything as she turned on her temperamental air conditioner. “She met this man twice?”

“That’s what she says. I didn’t hear about either meeting until the cops showed up tonight. Anyway, my point is this. You know a few cops, right?”

“Don’t start,” Eden warned.

Mary tapped impatient fingernails on the tabletop. “Forget the past, will you? You do know some cops. You could get information.”

Eden could be stubborn, too. “Mary, the only cops I knew have either quit or been reassigned.”

“What about that prosecution lawyer you dated last year?”

“You want me to ask him to spy for us?”

“If necessary, yes. Look, I don’t think you’re clueing in here. This little scenario has the potential to go very bad, very fast.”

Circumstantial evidence…

Eden rubbed her temples. It was still hot in here. She really needed a new air conditioner. “Back up a little,” she suggested. “Did Lisa go to this plantation with—what was his name?”

“Burgoyne, Maxwell. She says no. They had dinner near Chalmette, or started to. He said something that ticked her off—which couldn’t have been easy since she’s virtually untickable—and she left. He followed her out. They got into their respective cars and drove away. Lisa went home. Maxwell went to the auction preview. Less than an hour later, someone slammed him on the head, and it was lights out for Mr. B.”

Unimpressed, Eden kicked her sister’s feet off the chair where she’d propped them. “Maxwell Burgoyne was a person, Mary, and he was murdered. You could try for a little compassion.”

“Why? Because he was our father?”

“Oh, no.” Eden swung around to face her. “No way was some stranger my father. You want to talk science and procreation, fine, but my dad, my real dad, had a ponytail until I was thirteen, which he cut off so I wouldn’t get bugged because he and my mother were going to chaperon my first spring dance.”

Because that same real dad had also died of cancer five years ago and Eden still cried when she thought about him, she halted her tirade there and forced her mind back to Lisa.

“Do the police have a murder weapon?” she asked after a pause.

Mary started to put her feet up again, caught Eden’s expression and shrugged. “I get the impression no. I think the sticking point is that several people in the restaurant where they ate heard Maxwell laughing—and not in a nice way, if you know what I mean. That’s why Lisa got upset and took off. You know how lame she is at hiding her feelings.”

“What did Maxwell do, professionally?”

“Businessman, big time.”

Eden leaned on the kitchen counter and stroked her white cat. “Powerful people tend to cultivate enemies,” she mused.

Mary snorted. “What was that you said about compassion? Oh hell, I hear a cell. Is it mine or yours?”

“Must be yours. My ring tone doesn’t sound like bad disco.”

“It’s Beethoven.” Mary dug the phone out of her shoulder bag. “What is it? I’m busy.”

If she hadn’t seen it happen, Eden wouldn’t have believed it was possible. Within five seconds, the blood had drained from Mary’s face, leaving her pasty white and gaping.

She hissed into the phone. “You can’t be serious. When? Are you sure?” She closed her eyes, groaned. “This can’t be happening.” Jamming two fingers into her temple, she breathed hard. “Okay, let me think, let me think.” Her eyes opened, slid to the window, then slowly, very slowly traveled to Eden’s face. “A lineup,” she murmured. The fingers she’d been pushing into her temple pointed at Eden. “Hey—yeah, it could work. It really could… What? Oh sure, I know the precinct. Thanks, Dev. No, just lock up and go home.”

“Who was…?” Eden began, but Mary had already ended the call, grabbed her hand and started dragging her toward the bedroom.

Eden yanked free. “Are you crazy? Who was that?”

“A neighbor. The cops came again. Lisa’s been taken in for further questioning.”

A streak of lightning over the old city caused the power to flutter for several seconds. Eden rubbed her wrist.

“Go on. I know there’s worse to come.”

“They have a witness.”

“Someone saw Lisa murder Maxwell Burgoyne?”

“Apparently.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“No, that’s New Orleans.” Thunder shook the foundations of the old building. Mary’s eyes glittered. “You know the justice system, Eden. All it takes is one bad cop. He wants Lisa guilty, bam, she’s guilty.”

“It’s hardly that simple, Mary.” And Eden didn’t want to go there in any case. “What’s your point?”

“Look at you, Eden.” Planting both hands on her shoulders, Mary propelled her to a plantation mirror in the hall. “Look at your face. Look at your hair—dark, thick, long. Green, green eyes. Gorgeous features.”

Eden saw it coming. She might be a step behind, but only a baby step.

“You and Lisa are ringers for each other.” Her sister sounded both triumphant and relieved.

Eden resisted the idea. “Mary, we’re not…”

“To a stranger, you are.” She caught Eden’s glare and shrugged. “Well, okay, you’re close enough, or you will be once I fix your hair and you put on a pair of jeans and a pink T-shirt.” She frowned. “I think that’s what Lisa was wearing today. Pink or peach.”

“I don’t have a pink T-shirt.”

“Close’ll do, Eden.” Exasperated, Mary tugged and twisted until Eden’s hair was wrapped in a messy bun. She found a pencil on the hall table and stuck it though the knot to secure it. Then she stood back. “It’ll work.” She spun Eden around. “You have to do this, okay? Lisa’s our sister, and we both know whoever he or she is, this witness is lying. Lisa doesn’t even swat flies. She wouldn’t hit a man on the head and kill him.”

“Mary…”

“Please, please tell me you don’t have an alibi for Sunday night.”

“I don’t need one.”

“Stop being difficult. What did you do on Sunday?”

For Lisa’s sake, Eden relented. “I had dinner with Dolores at her place.”

Dolores Boyer was their natural grandmother and the only family member Lisa, Mary and Eden all got along with. She made her home north of New Orleans in the bayou and only came to the city when she absolutely had to.

“That’s perfect.” Mary arranged strands of loose hair around her sister’s face. “She’ll go along with you when she realizes what’s at stake.” She stopped styling. “You were alone, right?”

“Yes.” Eden removed the pencil. “Look, Mary…”

“There’s no look. Our neighbor specifically said the word lineup. You have to be in it.”

Eden studied her reflection. Lightning forked through the night sky, threatening the power once again. But even though the lights trembled and faded and the hall was poorly lit, she saw Lisa’s features in her own.

Struck dead in a graveyard, Mary had said. No way had Lisa done that. But there was a witness…

“Must’ve been drunk,” she decided. With a sigh, she took the pencil from her sister, wound her hair back up and headed for the bedroom.

“Where are you going?” Mary demanded.

“I have an old red T-shirt somewhere. I also have to phone Dolores and tell her about Sunday night.” The lights popped off then on. “Look, let’s get this done while I’m still feeling halfway sane.”

For some reason, the words Mary had recited earlier ran through her head.

“‘…For deeds long past, chère child will reap, my vengeance curse, of death—or worse.’”

It was a family curse, Dolores had told them, passed through her to their birth mother Lucille, then on to Lucille’s eldest child. In the para-scientific world, that made Eden the target of its voodoo wrath.

And for the first time since she’d heard it ten years ago, the malice behind it made Eden shiver.

ARMAND LAMORTE stood in the shadows on the glass side of a two-way mirror and regarded the assortment of women behind it.

Without looking away, he spoke to the officer who’d just entered, a veteran cop with a gimpy leg and a ratty clipboard. “What’s the woman’s last name, Al?”

“Mayne, Lisa. She’s twenty-eight. Owns two big garden supply shops and a catering company in the city. You know the family?”

“I’ve heard of them. She inherited well.”

“Every dime of the old family money. She was the sole heir, adopted at twenty-two months. She has two blood sisters but no siblings in the legal sense.”

“The three were split up?”

“At a young age. Don’t know the story there.” Al flipped through the wad of papers on his clipboard. “I do know the other two weren’t as lucky moneywise. The youngest crapped out totally. Her old man lost his job and turned to alcohol. Her ma died when she was ten.”

Armand’s gaze settled on the most striking of the women behind the glass. She wore a snug fitting red T-shirt that ended just above the waistband of her equally snug jeans.

Al followed Armand’s gaze. “That’s Eden Bennett, one of the sisters. She’s older than the suspect by a year.”

Armand half smiled. “I met her ex once.”

“Then you’ll know she’s not a fan of cops or cop stations. She called in a favor and got herself into the lineup. I’ve seen the pair of them close up. There’s a strong resemblance.”

“That should confuse your witness nicely.”

“You don’t have to sound amused,” Al grumbled. “I’m stuck with the paperwork on this one, and trust me, between Burgoyne and his holdings, a tardy witness, no murder weapon and now a doppelganger tossed into the mix, I’ll be filling out reports for the next six months.”

Armand kept his eyes on Eden. “You think Lisa Mayne hit him?”

“Personally? No. Poison’s a woman’s weapon.”

Armand’s lips curved. “Some would call that a sexist remark.”

“I’m sixty-two and deskbound. I’m entitled. I told you, I’ve seen the woman. In my jaundiced opinion, she wouldn’t have bludgeoned the guy.”

“Maybe she has a Jekyll and Hyde personality.”

“Not from what I saw. A little off in space, maybe, but hey, she’s rich.”

Armand couldn’t resist a grin. “You need to get out more.”

“What I need is for Parker to get his butt in gear. He’s handling the witness. Name’s Robert Weir. He looks like a librarian.”

“Credible?”

“On the surface. Says he freaked when he saw Burgoyne get hit. Did I mention they were business partners?”

“Burgoyne and the witness?” Armand regarded Eden through half-lidded eyes while he rolled that tidbit over. “What’s Weir’s story?”

“He panicked when he saw the murder, took off and hid out at home for two days.”

“Didn’t want to get involved?”

“Something like that. He told us up-front he wasn’t fond of his late partner.”

Armand slid his gaze sideways. “So if the surviving partner had no love for the dead one, where do you read the words credible witness?”

“We have no priors on the guy, in fact no charges of any kind. Three parking and two speeding tickets in the past fifteen years, all paid in full. He has an ex and a kid, a daughter. No problem there. He’s on the books for child support, and there haven’t been any gripes from his former wife, so he must be coming through. He has a condo in the Warehouse District and he went to Tulane.”

“Your alma mater.”

Al’s expression grew pensive. “I wanted to be a pro running back in those days.”

Armand ran his eyes over Eden’s legs. He’d bet a month’s pay they were the longest in the room. “There’s no security in pro sports, Al. You’re better off here.”

“Uh-huh. And while we’re on the subject, you’re here tonight because…?”

“Why else? I missed your smiling face.”

Al snorted. “I haven’t smiled since that bullet shattered my kneecap three years ago. You got nothing better to do, go hunt up Parker and tell him to get in here with that witness.”

She didn’t paint her fingernails, Armand noted. And he could see the green of her eyes from here. “You need to slow down, Al, lay back.” He smiled. “Take a vacation.”

“Love to. You wanna do my job while I’m gone?”

“Sorry, already booked.”

“That’s what they all say.” His head came up. “Is that Parker’s voice?” He paused on his way out. “You gonna leer at Lisa Mayne’s sister all night or check out that waterfront hotel you mentioned earlier… Is that you, Parker?” He raised his voice before Armand could answer. “We’re in 5C,” he called. “Later, Mandy.”

Armand nodded. Eden had a look of alertness about her that he found intriguing. She wouldn’t miss a trick—which would make her extremely difficult to deceive.

A smile curved on his lips even as his eyes lingered on Eden’s face. He pushed off from the wall. He had his work cut out for him.

Chapter Two

It took the better part of three hours to straighten things out. If you could call them straightened. Eden’s neck and shoulder muscles felt knotted, and she could still hear one of the women in the lineup crunching hard candy.

Lisa had been dazed throughout the ordeal. She still was. Eden watched her through a glass room divider from her seat in the corridor. She was talking to a bald police officer with shiny brown pants and a paunch.

At least it was quiet here, she thought. And on the murky side of dark.

Resting her head against the wall, she closed her eyes. They hadn’t seen the witness or learned his name. All Eden knew was that a man had come forward after a two-day delay and announced that he could identify Maxwell Burgoyne’s murderer.

Eden also knew that thanks to her presence in the lineup he’d been unable to make good on his promise.

“Your sister’s a fortunate woman.”

The voice came from the shadowy region to her right. When she opened her eyes, she saw a tall, male silhouette lounging against one of the archway frames.

His hair, she noticed, skimmed his shoulders. While he appeared relaxed, she heard New Orleans in his voice and recognized the predator behind it. Whether she’d met him here or on a California beach, she’d have pegged him as a cop right off.

“Not in the mood to chat?” he asked when she didn’t respond.

Because it wasn’t in her nature to be rude, she murmured, “Lost in thought, I guess. It’s been a long day. I suppose she is fortunate, yes.”

Because he lingered in the shadows, she couldn’t make out his features. Except his mouth. She could see that clearly enough. “You’re Eden Bennett,” he said. “And, like your sister, you have no alibi for the night Maxwell Burgoyne was killed.”

“Exactly. No alibi, no way for your witness to be sure which one of us he thinks he saw, no charges pending against either of us at this point.”

“There will be a thorough investigation, you understand that.”

Eden drew her brows together. “We’re counting on it, Detective…”

“LaMorte,” he obliged. “Armand.”

“Are you involved in this investigation?”

“I’d be crazy to be here at this hour if I weren’t, don’t you think?”

“Maybe. You look like a night shift kind of person to me.”

“Uh-huh. Do you believe your sister’s innocent?”

The question didn’t faze her, but Eden still wished she could see him better. “Absolutely. The only things Lisa’s ever killed are aphids, and not many of those.”

“She’s a gardener.” He smiled at her speculative expression. “It’s in the report. She says she was home and working in her garden when the victim was struck. Do you like gardens, Eden?”

“I appreciate them.” She glanced at Lisa, saw the strain on her features and gave an inward sigh. “Will this take much longer?”

“I doubt it. You’re the oldest, aren’t you?”

“I’m twenty-nine,” she told him. “Lisa’s twenty-eight. Mary’s twenty-six. We were raised by three different sets of parents.”

“Did you know Maxwell as children?”

“We never even knew of him. Lisa located our birth mother, Lucille Chaney, six months before she contacted me. That was ten years ago. Lucille said she put us up for adoption when her husband died.”

“No money to raise you?”

“Among other things. Wasn’t this information in that report of yours, Detective LaMorte?”

“Some of it was. You can call me Armand.”

“Thanks, but I prefer Detective.”

He shrugged. “We’ll be seeing a lot of each other in the coming weeks, Eden.”

His words almost sent a chill down her spine. But Lisa wasn’t guilty, and Eden could hold her own with any cop, even one with a slow, sexy smile, long dark hair and—she had a fatalistic instinct about the last thing—dark eyes that were going to make her think things she shouldn’t.

“Why do I sense you want to slap me?” he asked in amusement.

“It’s been a long day. I’m tired.”

“You don’t like cops, do you?”

Now, finally, he moved—out of the deepest shadows and into the light.

Damn, she thought with a sigh. He had a face to match his voice and his smile. He also had those dark eyes she’d imagined and, for a split second, a glint inside them that made her nerves jitter.

“I was married to a cop once. It didn’t work out. He looked a little like you.” Right down to the stubble, she thought and found herself smiling at the irony of the situation. “We divorced three years ago. I’m over it.”

“Over the unpleasantness or the man?”

“Both. Our split wasn’t unpleasant, just…” Disappointing, she reflected. “Strained,” she said.

He didn’t believe her, but it didn’t matter, or at least it shouldn’t. Yes, she would see him during the course of the investigation, but she could keep her distance as well as any other woman. Better, since seeing him would remind her again and again of what she’d been through once and had no desire to go through a second time.

The smile that hovered on his lips suggested he knew exactly what she was thinking. “I met your husband, Eden. Our paths crossed once on a rather involved drug bust.” He shrugged. “I used to work in Vice.”

Eden stood. “Then you’ll understand my reasons for saying good night.”

Instead of backing off, he moved closer. “You can’t avoid me.”

She was exhausted, out of her element, and in no mood to play games with him. “I don’t have to avoid you, Detective. You’re involved in an investigation which I have no choice but to endure. I don’t waste time worrying about things I can’t change.”

He cocked his head. “What about your sisters? Can they cope as well as you?”

Oh, he was dangerously attractive all right. She glanced through the glass door. “Lisa’s stronger than she looks. As for Mary…” She flicked a hand. “She’s not on the hook for a crime. She’ll be fine.”

“She’s at Pascoe’s as we speak.”

Eden recognized the name of the trendy Caribbean lounge. “There you go, then,” she said. “Mary’s coping as always.”

“You call drinking martinis at 1:00 a.m. coping?”

Eden found it interesting that his amusement didn’t annoy her. “It’s her way, Detective, not mine.” She switched gears to inquire, “This witness of yours, is he by any chance connected to Maxwell Burgoyne?”

Armand’s expression told her nothing, and of course he’d discovered another shadow in which to conceal himself. That the shadow happened to be less than a foot from where Eden stood didn’t improve her mood.

“Before the lineup, one of our computer artists put together a composite based on the witness’s description of the murderer. That picture could be of you or your sister.”

“Which proves…?”

“Nothing on its own.” His lashes lowered. “Tell me, is your sister right-handed or left?”

“Right. Why?”

“You signed your name with your left hand tonight.”

“I sign with my left, but I promise you, I can inflict pain with either. You’re not very subtle, Detective LaMorte. I take it Maxwell Burgoyne was struck by a right-handed person.”

He didn’t answer, and a second later the door across the hall opened.

Lisa emerged looking edgy and drawn. “Thanks for waiting, Eden.” The blackness under her eyes had grown more pronounced. “Lieutenant Owen says we can leave.” She rubbed her forehead. “Who were you talking to when I came out?”

Eden glanced back. Somehow, it didn’t surprise her that Armand had vanished. “A man, a detective on the case. He asks questions, but doesn’t answer many.” She regarded Lisa. “Are you all right?”

“I want to get out of here.”

Eden checked out the shadows one last time. “They’re so elusive,” she said softly.

Lisa blinked. “What?”

Unsure what to make of the entire bizarre encounter, Eden shook her head. “I’m either incredibly perceptive, or—” she released a weary breath “—I’m headed for a whole lot of trouble.”

ARMAND WATCHED HER GO. She was more than he’d anticipated and not like her sister at all.

He had his cell phone out and the number punched. As she left the building with Lisa, he pressed the button to make the call.

“Is it done then?” his father demanded over a static-filled line.

“For the moment.” Armand took care not to lose his cover of darkness. Eden owned a sporty, black car, similar to both her sisters’, and she had the sexiest walk of any woman in New Orleans.

“Are you napping, Detective LaMorte?”

He smiled a little. “Observing. How did you know it was me?”

“Who else would phone so late? You understand your job?”

Armand’s gaze hardened. “I only need to be told once. Are you sure this is how you want it to be? It’s more complicated than you thought.”

“There we agree,” his father said. “But more complicated doesn’t mean we can walk away. You made me a promise, and I mean to hold you to it.”

“I’ll keep my word.” Armand followed Eden’s movements as she disengaged her alarm. “They’re leaving now, probably to pick up their other sister.”

“You sound displeased. You should be happy.”

“Why, because Maxwell Burgoyne is dead? I’m supposed to extract justice for death, not applaud it.”

“We both know what kind of snake Maxwell Burgoyne was while he lived. Now he’s gone, and I need your help, father to son. Don’t disappoint me.”

“Have I ever?”

“In the important ways, no. Just remember what’s at stake here, and if you have to, lock your conscience away. It’ll only be a burden to you in this case.”

This case, Armand thought as he disconnected. This skewed and twisted case into which he had been plunged with next to no warning.

Like it or not, however, he was in deep and stuck there. Whether that would prove to be good or bad depended entirely on how the victim’s murder was viewed.

“STOP AT LUCILLE’S CLUB,” Lisa pleaded with Eden. “She’s part of our lives. We should tell her what’s happening.”

“I didn’t drink enough if I’m hearing this.” From the back, Mary used her knee to poke Lisa’s seat. “Although she conveniently neglected to mention it to us, Lucille was married to Maxwell Burgoyne. She knows he’s dead. The rest of it has nothing to do with her.”

Lisa faced her sister. “Why do you hate her so much? Because she runs a nightclub?”

“No, because nightclub’s just a polite name for the business she really runs.”

Nonconfrontational by nature, Lisa appealed to Eden. “Can you talk to her, please? Oh, and turn left here.”

Eden had fought this battle with herself back at the police station. “Ten minutes, Mary,” she said. “You can wait in the car.” Which was the last thing Mary would do.

Lucille’s club, called Nona, was situated on the fringe of the Vieux Carre. The sign over the door didn’t flash or shine so the club didn’t appeal to the masses. That was exactly as Lucille wanted it. Her other business ventures—and she had more than a few, Eden had discovered over the years—did that. Nona was understated and personal. It was also the place where Lucille could be found six nights out of seven.

“I still haven’t figured out how someone as cool as Dolores could have given birth to a tarantula,” Mary muttered. “Too bad the family curse didn’t strike Lucille.”

“It couldn’t. She wasn’t the oldest,” Lisa reminded. “Lucille’s brother died from the curse twenty years ago. He drove off a cliff or something.”

Mary folded her arms. “Yeah, well, Dolores has a few things to answer for if you ask me.”

“Like what?”

Eden glanced in the rearview mirror for the fifth time in two minutes and saw Mary roll her eyes. “Like why she never mentioned that Lucille’s ex-husband—”

“Our biological father,” Mary inserted.

“Was alive,” Eden finished. “Lucille lied, Lisa, and Dolores went along with her.”

But Lisa was always ready to defend other people. “Of course Lucille lied. You’d have lied, too, in her position. You didn’t meet Maxwell. He was—awful.”

It was a huge comment coming from Lisa.

Bright headlights in the rearview mirror diverted Eden’s attention. She noticed a faint blue tinge around the edges. Was someone following them? Out loud, she asked, “Awful how? Was he obnoxious, abrasive, sloppy, rude?”

“He wasn’t sloppy.” Lisa indicated the curb lane. “There’s a parking spot. He was obnoxious and rude, and I didn’t like him at all. I’m sure you heard, I met him twice.”

Eden wedged her car between two monster SUVs. “Why a second meeting if he was so bad?”

“Because after our first disastrous outing last Wednesday, I figured I must have misjudged him. No one could be that horrible. So I called and asked if we could have dinner somewhere. I wanted to try again.”

“But you hadn’t misjudged him.”

“If I did, it was on the generous side.” Lisa’s shoulders twitched. “I don’t want to go into detail. Just believe me when I say he had a mean tongue.”

“Ah, so that’s why he hooked up with Lucille. Like seeks out like.” Mary made a face as she read the sign above the door. “I hate this place, but at least Mommy Dearest keeps a well-stocked bar. Defend her all you like, Lisa, I still have a bone to pick with—” She stopped, frowned and backtracked. “Wait a minute, he was rich, right? Eden, didn’t I tell you earlier that Maxwell Burgoyne was loaded?”

“You said big-time businessman. Lisa said horrible.” Eden used her remote to lock the car doors. “I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.”

“He might have left us something in his will,” Mary persisted. “You know, a conscience thing.”

Lisa shook her head. “Maxwell didn’t have a conscience, Mary. There won’t be any guilt money.”

“Oh, well, screw him then. Or sue him if the opportunity arises.” Mary poked the front door open with her fingertips. “I smell raspberries.”

Eden looked up. The rain clouds had moved downriver but no stars shone overhead. The air felt heavy, almost suffocating. Cars rolled past on Canal even this late at night. She heard a saxophone down the street and the repeated zot of someone’s bug zapper.

Everything seemed normal. So why, she wondered, couldn’t she shake the image of those stupid blue-tinted headlights in her rearview mirror—or the face of a cop who preferred shadow to light?

“Losing it,” she decided and followed her sisters inside. “Hey, Ty.”

“Hey back at’cha.” Lucille’s six-foot-six rail-thin assistant waved a ring-covered hand at the rear of the building. “She’s up in her office if you’re looking.”

“Bring bourbon,” Mary called over her shoulder.

Ty ignored her. “Bad day?” he asked Eden.

“Okay day, not great night.” She squinted through palm fronds, people and tables to a trio of women on a small raised stage. “Is it blues week?”

“Winding down now, sugar. Got a reggae band booked tomorrow. Tell your chippy little sister, Lucille still keeps a good bar upstairs.”

Eden grinned. “Mary doesn’t really have a chip on her shoulder, Ty. She took a method acting course last year and hasn’t realized it’s over yet.”

Ty chuckled and moved on. Eden headed for the stairwell.

Lucille’s preference ran to freeze-dried palms, rattan furniture and dim lighting. Blues music drifted out of the private rooms, and the air did in fact smell like raspberries.

Because she’d done her first filling at seven-thirty that morning, Eden’s head felt as fuzzy as the lights. She’d crossed, she reflected, into that weird realm between consciousness and sleep.

The wall beside her was lined with oil paintings, most of them abstract, and every one as dark and mysterious as Armand LaMorte.

“Hell.” With a sigh, Eden started up.

“Hell, is it? And I thought you liked my place.”

Her heart lurched. Pushing a fist into her ribs, Eden breathed out and turned. “I don’t need a coronary to make this night a bust, Lucille. Don’t you creak when you walk?”

Lucille, a tall, fine-boned woman with straight, dark hair, a thick fringe of bangs and bloodred fingernails, gave Eden’s cheek a pat. “You were creaking enough for both of us, love. What are you doing here so late?”

Eden relaxed. “Lisa wants to talk to you.”

“I heard the story.”

“The whole thing?”

“Most of it. There was a police officer here tonight, an old friend. We chatted. He left twenty minutes ago.”

For some reason, Armand’s face flashed in Eden’s head. She pushed it out and asked, “Is this cop a regular friend?”

“Yes, but I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t use that word around Mary. Since my potpourri now contains a hint of poison, I’ll assume she’s upstairs with Lisa.”

Humor crept into Eden’s tone. “Wanna run?”

“It’s tempting.” Lucille plastered on a smile. “I’ll settle for letting you lead the way—in case she’s conned Lisa into buying her a gun.”

Gun, cop, Armand LaMorte. The circle drew her in, as did all the problems Eden saw looming before her. Why couldn’t Mary look like Lisa instead of her?

Barbs flew the moment they entered Lucille’s office. Eden ignored them and drank in the atmosphere to distract herself.

The decor was Haitian with an abundance of ebony wood. Eden zeroed in on the sofa and dropped onto it. Five minutes passed before it occurred to her that Lisa had vanished.

“She made a beeline for the lower balcony.” Mary gestured at a large outer terrace. “Digging helps her deal. She told me to fill Lucille in. Now that’s done, where’s the key to the liquor cabinet?”

Lucille’s brows elevated. “You don’t seem concerned about Lisa’s state of mind, Mary. Since when can’t she speak for herself?”

“She asked, I complied. Who am I to psychoanalyze her? She’s dealing, okay?”

“By digging in my club garden at 2:00 a.m.?”

“Digging’s what she does.” Annoyed, Mary paced. “Why am I talking, Eden, and you’re not?”

“I’m too tired to talk.” She wasn’t even sure she could open her eyes now that she’d closed them. “I see disembodied teeth smiling at me. I think I have an extraction at nine-thirty tomorrow morning.” She forced her eyelids halfway up. “Lucille, why didn’t you tell us about Maxwell?”

“Because he was a dreadful man. Not bad from birth, but he became that way over the years. For you to have known him would have served no purpose.”

Mary prowled the room. “You’d never know she grew up in the bayou, would you, Eden? Bottom line, the guy was a creep.”

“Did Dolores know about him?” Stupid question. Dolores knew everything about everyone in her life.

“She agreed you shouldn’t meet him.”

“But you must have realized Lisa would track him down eventually.”

“I thought Lisa had put that obsession behind her. I had no idea she planned to hire a private investigator to search for him. I wouldn’t have expected her to bother.”

“Well, no, seeing as you lied to us so convincingly.” Mary tugged on the armoire door. “You remember the tale, Lucille. Our natural father sailed off to the South Pacific with a team of scientists and their ship went down, blah, blah, blah.”

Curious now, Eden asked, “What made Lisa look for Maxwell, Mary?”

“Hey, I just found out about the P.I. thing myself. I have no idea what middle sis was thinking or why. Maybe the ship going down sounded hokey to her. It might have to me if I’d cared enough to think about it. I’d say you should ask Lisa, but she’s out of talk mode at the moment. As soon as we came in here, she got that ‘I need to get my hands in dirt’ look in her eyes and took off out the balcony door. Can we go now, Eden?”

“As soon as my muscles reconnect to my brain. Have you spoken to Dolores yet, Lucille?”

“Briefly. She said you didn’t have dinner with her last Sunday. That’s very generous of you. Unwise perhaps, but generous.”

Guilt niggled as Eden recalled her resistance to the police lineup. “It was Mary’s idea.”

“And a selfless one, I’m sure.”

Lucille’s mocking smile brought a scowl to Mary’s lips. “Extraction tomorrow, Eden. Let’s go.” She slid her hip sack over one bare shoulder. “Oh, by the way, Lucille, in case no one’s told you, you look like hell.”

“I’ve been on a diet.” Lucille regarded Eden from her oversized office chair. “Why are you staring at my armoire? Is someone lurking in the shadows?”

“No, only shadows.” And a face Eden couldn’t erase from her mind no matter how hard she tried. She brought her gaze around. “Who might have wanted him dead?”

“A better question would be, who wouldn’t? Anyone he knew could be on the list.”

Eden didn’t buy that. “Few people would resort to murder, Lucille. Nasty phone calls, maybe, but killing’s a drastic last step. The list can’t be long.”

Lucille shrugged. “How long does it need to be? Would there be twenty names on it? Easily. Thirty? I’d say yes. As many as fifty? Possibly. Disgruntled employees have been known to commit horrific crimes. Push the right button and a mind, already badly strained, snaps.”

Eden conceded the point. And yet… “How many disgruntled workers do you figure would look like Lisa and me?”

“Ah, yes.” Lucille sat back. “The witness.”

Mary snorted. “For witness, read real murderer.”

“I’m sure the police have considered the possibility, Mary. At any rate, Eden has rendered his testimony useless, so it’ll be back to basics for now.”

Mary made a sound like a growl. “I’m getting Lisa.”

When she was gone, Eden stood. It was either that or curl up on Lucille’s sofa for the night. “Is Dolores okay about Sunday then? She didn’t sound happy when I called.”

Lucille rose as well. “She’s fine with it, Eden, but I’ll warn you now, she’s on a tear about the family curse.”

Eden tipped her head back to ease the tension in her neck. “Tell her I’ll watch my back.” She glanced at the terrace. “Is Mary shouting at me?”

“Such a loving sister. Eden, wait.” Lucille wrapped a hand around her wrist. “I want you to promise me you’ll let the police handle this.”

“Why?”

“Because I know you. You don’t trust them. You have a stubborn streak, and you love Lisa almost as much as the family you grew up with.”

No, she didn’t. She wanted to, but she didn’t—which was undoubtedly the reason she’d gone along with Mary’s scheme. Guilt was an amazing weapon, as effective as it was destructive.

“Talk to me about this tomorrow, okay?” Eden headed for the terrace door. “My brain’s processing on low right now. I need sleep and time to think.”

She heard Mary outside, ordering Lisa to forget about Lucille’s flowers and worry about what really mattered.

“Don’t let Mary bamboozle you, Eden,” Lucille warned. “Lisa’s freedom is imperative to her, but not for reasons of love. It’s all about money. Mary might not control the bank account, but she controls the next best thing—Lisa herself.”

Setting a hand on the door frame, Eden glanced back. Mary was right, Lucille did look like hell. “She doesn’t control Lisa, Lucille. Plays on her emotions, yes, and there’s no question she loves money, but I think she also cares deep down.”

Lucille’s gaze strayed to the river. “Mary is Maxwell’s daughter, his blood by birth. Circumstances fashion much of who and what we ultimately become, but sometimes bad blood just plain wins out. I’ll leave it at that. Good night, chère.”

Eden hesitated a moment longer, but couldn’t think of anything to say. She did marvel, though, at how quickly a person’s life could go from simple to complicated. One incomplete dinner, one man dead, one nightmare commenced.

She only wished that a large part of that nightmare didn’t involve a dark-eyed police detective.

THIRTY MINUTES PASSED before Lucille did anything more than stare at the flashes of lightning still visible on the river. The club would be empty now except for the tables behind the back rooms. Mary didn’t know about those. None of them did.

There were other things they didn’t know, some important, some not.

She shifted her attention to the wall safe, the most cleverly hidden of the three she’d installed when the club opened. There were bankbooks inside, as well as stock certificates and money. There was also an unmarked envelope.

“No!” She shook her head. “No.”

Touching a sore patch in the crook of her elbow, she moved to her desk. It was late to be phoning people, but then again, not everyone who lived and breathed could be called people. Some were vultures. Others were vermin. And at least one person she knew of—the only one still alive—could more appropriately be called a serpent.

Chapter Three

Eden hadn’t made it through dental college without a great deal of self-discipline. She regrouped on the drive home and told herself she would hold together until the investigation into Maxwell Burgoyne’s death was behind her.

She spied bluish headlights twice in her rearview mirror before she dropped Mary and Lisa off, but not again after that. Determined, she put the sightings down to imagination and tried to concentrate on molar extractions until she reached her apartment.

Someone close by was humming a song. The voice slid through the darkness like a vapor. Listening was almost as effective as yoga for mental relaxation.

Armand LaMorte’s face hovered on the edge of her mind. It was 2:30 a.m. If she went straight to bed, she could squeeze in six hours of sleep. A good dentist could drill and fill just fine with six hours under her belt. Of course, that precluded any worry time for Lisa, and she absolutely could not let herself delve into the paradox that was Maxwell Burgoyne.

He was an X chromosome, she reminded herself as she unlocked the gate, nothing more. Well, except he was also dead, and that was both unfortunate and problematic.

With the exception of the distant singer, the complex was silent. If she listened hard, she could hear remnants of thunder, but the rain had long since departed. Only the humidity remained, air so heavy with moisture she might have been walking underwater.

Street lamps guided her. Her neighbors were either asleep or out. Two of them had left New Orleans for the summer.

Eden gave the front door a bump with her hip while she twisted on the key. To her surprise, it opened. She switched on the table lamp and, picking up her mail, headed for the kitchen to check Amorin’s food dish.

“Bills and junk. What else is new?” She tossed the envelopes on the staircase and called, “I’m home, Ammie.”

The sound of shattering glass halted her.

Before she could call Amorin again, a man hurtled out of the darkness. He knocked her sideways with his shoulder and kept running. In his haste, he slipped on the wooden floor, collided with the hall table and sent her lamp crashing to the ground.

Once the initial jolt subsided, Eden scrambled to her feet and rushed after him.

He couldn’t open the door. The knob kept slipping out of his hands. He resorted to kicking it and grunting like a pig.

Eden caught him easily—at least she caught his shirt. “You broke my lamp…” she began, but got no further. The door burst open and both of them were flung backward into the wall.

The intruder’s elbow plunged into her ribs. Panicked, he took off in search of an alternate exit. Eden knew he hadn’t found one when she heard a thump followed by a howl of pain.

Careful not to get kicked by flailing feet, she eased her arm up the wall and located the light switch. When she saw the man pinned on his stomach, she breathed out a disbelieving, “This night can’t be happening,” and sank back to the floor. “What,” she demanded with as much energy as she could muster, “are you doing here, Detective LaMorte?”

Armand had his right knee lodged in the intruder’s back, and his wrists held fast. He didn’t answer right away, and she didn’t repeat the question. “You’re an idiot, Kenny,” she said instead. “One of these days, someone’s going to forget how nice your mother is and press charges.”

In the process of handcuffing his prisoner, Armand stared at her. “You know this guy?”

“I know his mother. She lives across the courtyard. I only know Kenny in passing.”

Armand flipped the intruder over and studied his face. “How old are you? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

The young man swore at him.

“He looks sixteen,” Eden agreed. “He acts five. He’s really twenty-one.”

“Drugs?”

“For some reason he’s convinced I keep a supply of painkillers here. This is the fourth time in two months he’s broken in while I’ve been out. Before that, he was…” She stopped as the reality of the situation struck her. “Wait a minute, it’s two-thirty in the morning. What are you doing in my home, or anywhere near it for that matter?”

Wincing, she climbed to her feet.

Armand immediately abandoned his prisoner. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” She didn’t want him to touch her. However, he did, and in doing so, pinned her as effectively as he had Kenny.

“Don’t move,” he said. His fingers slid over her ribs with aggravating thoroughness. “You might have broken something.”

“I’m fine.” It took a huge effort not to grind her teeth. “Really.” She stopped his probing hands with her own. “I’d know if anything was broken. But thank you.”

“Going blind here,” Kenny wailed from the floor. “Light’s too bright.”

“Close your eyes,” Eden suggested. She concentrated on her own breathing. Why did sexy cops always have stubble? She nodded at the floor. “Worry about him, Armand. He’s photosensitive.”

He didn’t back off. “You could have a fracture and not know it.”

“Doctor first thing tomorrow—today—whatever. I promise.” When he ran his hands along her rib cage one last time and made her shiver, Eden finally took the initiative and stepped out of reach. “You haven’t answered my question, Detective.”

A smile curved his lips. “You called me Armand a minute ago.”

“I was in shock.” Because Kenny was whimpering, she took pity on him and dimmed the lights. Big mistake, she realized. It bathed the hallway in shadows and gave Armand back that air of mystery she’d been endeavoring to block out all evening.

He was taller than her and very lean. His hair fell past the collar of his shirt, curling just enough to make her fingers long to run through it.

Not going there, she promised herself and, tucking her hands behind her back, leaned against the stairwell wall.

“Why are you here?” she asked again.

He crouched to inspect Kenny’s eyes. “I had questions. When I realized you weren’t home, I waited.”

Disengaging her left hand, Eden massaged her aching ribs. “So you were on the street while Kenny was ransacking my apartment?”

“The plan was to ask questions, Eden, not anticipate a break and enter.”

“Fell asleep, huh?”

He sent her a wary look and didn’t respond.

Eden breathed in and out, decided it didn’t hurt too much, then stopped and raised her head. Where was Amorin?

“You can’t manhandle me,” Kenny snarled. “I’ll say you did if you jerk me around.”

“I’ll say he didn’t if you’ve let my cat out,” Eden retorted. “Where is she, Kenny?”

“Is she small and white?” Armand asked.

Eden followed his gaze—and pretty much gave up on the night. Her cat sat on the stairs, watching the scene below through unblinking eyes.

Setting Kenny aside, Armand reached up a finger to stroke the cat’s chest. “You don’t look much like Eden, do you, sweetheart?”

“We both scratch,” Eden remarked with mild asperity. “And, if necessary, bite.”

“Are you going to bite me?” he asked the cat.

Amorin stared for several more seconds, then rubbed her head against his hand.

“Like seeks out like.” Eden echoed Mary’s earlier sentiment. Exasperated, she glanced at Armand’s prisoner who was now on his feet. “For God’s sake, Kenny, make up your mind. Either whimper or snarl, but choose one and stick to it.”

Armand gave him a shove. “Do you want to press charges?”

“No, take him home and let his mother deal with him.”

She felt Armand’s eyes on her face. “I still have questions, Eden.”

“You won’t get coherent answers at this time of the morning, Detective. Kenny’s mother lives across the courtyard. It’s the patio with the rose arbor.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m not hurt if that’s what you mean.” There was another lamp beside her, but for some reason Eden didn’t turn it on. “Lisa’s innocent. If you’re a good cop, you’ll prove that.”

He held Kenny back as he bridged a portion of the gap between them. Even with the AC unit off and the air swirling like dark liquid around them, Eden felt the heat of his skin.

“What if I can’t prove it?” he countered softly.

She kept her head up and her eyes on his. “If you can’t,” she said, “then I will.”

“WE MADE IT THROUGH the salad course, and one drink. Maxwell ordered a glass of bourbon, and I had iced tea. He went to the men’s room while we were eating. Maybe he made a phone call then, but he didn’t call anyone from the table. He made me uncomfortable with the things he said. He swore a lot, and he had a loud voice, so everyone around us heard him. The cruder he got, the more I wanted to leave. I guess he knew that, because he laughed at me. Finally I was so embarrassed, I put my money on the table and left. He must have paid his part of the bill, too, because I’m told he came out right after me. Maybe people thought we were together, but we weren’t, Eden. I came straight home. He went on to Concordia, the plantation where the auction was going to be held…”

Eden recognized the name. She’d dated a boy in high school whose grandfather had worked there.

“It had a lopsided roof,” she said out loud in her office.

Her dental assistant, Phoebe, smiled. “You’re thinking about Concordia, am I right?”

Eden examined an X ray. “Made the morning paper, huh?”

“The whole gruesome tale. Murder at Concordia. Witness on-scene. No charges made. Police have spoken to the last person known to have seen the victim alive, one Elizabeth Jocelyn Mayne of Lanyon-Mayne fame. You okay there, Henry?” She patted the arm of their eleven-year-old patient whose eyes were glued to the overhead television. Spider-Man had him all the way.

Eden smiled. “If his eyes get any bigger, they’ll pop right out of his skull.” She returned to her work. “I didn’t read the article, Phoebe. How detailed was it?”

“Not so much. It mostly described the guy who died. Don’t get offended, okay, but I thought it was kind of cool in a morbid sort of way. I’ve never known anyone who was associated with anyone who was associated with a dead man. And a dead man with clout to boot.”

“So you’ve heard of Maxwell Burgoyne?”

“Not specifically, but they listed several of his holdings. I recognized about six of them. MamaDees Molasses and MamaDees Golden, Brown and Demerara Sugar, the LoBo record label, the FM radio station and the Pro-Max line of tools. They also mentioned a factory that makes hand-painted tiles, but I think it’s out of state. The guy had major bucks.”

“He also had a heart condition,” Roland, their receptionist, called through the open door. “He took pills for it.”

“His heart didn’t kill him, Roland,” Eden pointed out.

“No, something metal did that.” He shook a folded newspaper. “It says there were flecks of rust found in the head wound.”

“Are you hearing any of this, Henry?” Eden asked.

The boy’s eyes remained on the screen. He wore headphones in any case, but she wanted to be sure. The topic of murder wasn’t likely to rate high on his parents’ list of suitable dental office conversations.

Never one to linger on a topic, Phoebe began talking about her daughters, and Eden was able to finish her work in silence.

She’d been toying with an idea all day, but she didn’t know if it was a good one or not. What she wanted to do was drive out to Concordia where Maxwell had died. What she should do, however, was drive over to Lisa and Mary’s place and coax Lisa into going through the story again. She’d gone over it on the phone earlier today, but Lisa had been preoccupied. She’d been using her trowel as they’d talked.

“Mary talked about doing a photo shoot tonight, north of here,” Lisa had remarked. “It involves the last rays of light. Some magazine in Massachusetts that wants to do a spread on vampires and witches. She says they’ve got the witch part covered, but they’re looking for ruins where vampires might live, or unlive, or whatever it is vampires do.”

“You sound down, Lisa. Do you want to go out to Dolores’s for dinner?”

“No.” Lisa had been firm. “I’m not ready for Dolores yet. She’s the second closest person I know to a witch, and she’ll make me relive the whole nightmare again. The police have already asked me a million questions. I can’t tell them anything, and it’s frustrating. I mean, I didn’t like the man, Eden, but I swear I didn’t hit him. How many ways can I say it so they’ll understand?”

Eden understood. After all, she’d had a cop waiting outside her apartment last night with questions. True, he hadn’t been able to ask them, but only because he’d been sidetracked by an addict looking for painkillers. And then she’d been tied up at work today and she’d told Roland not to disturb her with anything except emergency calls.

Her conversation with Lisa played on while she finished Henry’s fillings, gave him the lollipop her young patients expected and stretched her cramped arm and back muscles.

“I wanted to talk to Lucille, Eden, I really did. But when we got there last night, suddenly I couldn’t face her. Mary thinks I’m flipping out, but I’m not. It’s just easier for me when I’m in a garden. Mine mostly, but any garden will do. I love the elements. They’re magical. You mix earth, water and light, a little seed, and suddenly, there’s life. Plants don’t ask questions, they simply exist and, with the proper care, thrive. I can’t imagine my life without them.”

That much Eden had realized the day she’d met Lisa. “Can I ask one more question?” she’d pressed.

“Why did I go looking for our natural father ten years after Lucille told us he was dead?”

“Right.”

“I heard her talking one night out at Dolores’s. I’d walked in from the road. They didn’t know I was there. I was passing under the window when Dolores up and asked Lucille what she would do if we ever learned the truth. Lucille wanted to know what truth, and Dolores said about our biological father being alive. I was stunned, Eden, so stunned I couldn’t go in. I turned around, drove home and went straight to my garden to think. The next day, I hired a private investigator. It took him eleven weeks. He started with Lucille and worked backward until he came up with a name.”

“Maxwell Burgoyne.” Eden thought for a minute. She’d never understood Lisa’s need to discover her birth relatives. “Maybe you should have left it alone, Lisa,” she’d said, “for all our sakes…”

Lisa hadn’t, however, and the rest couldn’t be undone with a wish.

Wishing also wouldn’t help Eden avoid Armand LaMorte for much longer. Roland said he’d called an hour ago. He’d tried again while she’d been ushering Henry out the door. There would be no more reprieves, she thought, glancing at the wall clock. Avoidance was in her hands now. If she was fast and lucky, she could make it home unobserved. Then she’d be free to do—well, whatever seemed most appropriate.

Her cell phone rang as she was unlocking her car. The display read Mary so she answered.

Her sister sounded testy. “Lisa said you wanted to talk to me, Eden.”

With her free hand, Eden unfastened her hair. “Don’t start with me, Mary. I got less than four hours of sleep last night, and I had to pull a mouthful of teeth this morning. Do you know how difficult that is?”

“I know it’s gross.”

“The before picture kind of was. The after will be good in a few days. Where are you right now?”

“En route to Montesse House. And don’t say it’s dangerous there. That’s the whole point of my trip.”

“Vampires, huh?”

“Feel flattered, Eden. Lisa told me you two had a long chat this morning. All I’ve gotten from her today is the brush.”

“Your battery’s dying,” Eden said. “Look, I’m going home for a few minutes. I’ll pick up some food and bring it to Montesse, okay?”

Mary’s response was lost in a blank spot which Eden took as a yes.

Twenty minutes later, she’d changed into drab army pants and a white T-shirt, ignored her answering machine, left a message for Lisa, fed Amorin and purchased dinner. Dusk had begun to settle by the time she reached the outskirts of the city. She noticed black clouds stacked in an angry bunch to the north and wondered if Mary’s battery had in fact been dying. An electrical storm might have disrupted the signal.

For highway driving, she turned her headlights on full and mapped out the route to Montesse in her head. She needed to leave the highway, and the road leading to the Mississippi was anything but smooth. This trip would be hard on her tires.

Her phone rang again a mile past the plantation exit. With no other cars in sight and the potholes readily visible in the thickening twilight, she read the screen, smiled and answered. “Hey, Dolores.”

“Don’t you hey me, pretty girl. You lied to the police. I’m not happy about that, not one bit.”

“No surprise there.”

“Lisa would hit herself on the head before anyone else. What were you thinking doing such a thing, putting your life in danger?”

“Why am I in danger?”

“What do you call a family curse if not dangerous?”

Silly, but Eden wasn’t about to say that to someone she loved. Instead she replied with patience, “The curse has no bearing on this, Dolores. It’s a—” Breaking off, she regarded her rearview mirror. There was a car with blue-tinted headlights behind her, she was sure of it.

“You still there?” Dolores demanded. “What’s going on? Why’d you stop talking?”

“I thought…” She saw nothing now, no car or headlights, in fact, no movement at all. “It’s okay, I guess. I just have this weird feeling I’m being followed. I see pale blue lights behind me, and I freak. Then they vanish, and I realize I’m jumping at shadows.” Which was, she reflected with a sigh, a word she really hadn’t needed to use. “Tell me, Dolores, have you spoken to a Detective LaMorte yet?”

“It’s possible. I’ve spoken to many police officers today. Told them all I didn’t make gumbo for you and me on Sunday night, no sir. Why ask me about one in particular?”

“I have a feeling he’s going to be a pain.”

“Maybe he’ll catch the killer quick and leave us with only the curse to worry about.”

“I’m not worried, Dolores.”

“Then I’ll have to worry twice as hard, won’t I? You don’t do me any favors with your unbelieving attitude, Eden. Who raised you makes no difference. It’s the blood in your veins that counts.”

“Boyer blood.”

“No, my blood. I wasn’t born a Boyer. That curse took away my brother who was a year older than me. He had no children, so the focus shifted—and if you say it must be a smart curse, I’ll put you over my knee next time I see you.”

“I believe you.” Eden bumped through a rut and bit her tongue. “Ouch.”

“You’re driving too fast like always.”

“How do you know I’m driving?”

“I hear the engine.”

“Over the stereo?”

“Music’s too loud, too.”

Suspicious, Eden demanded, “Did Mary or Lisa call you tonight?”

“No, and I don’t expect they will. When trouble comes, Mary either gets drunk or finds a man to distract her. You, you decide you’re fine and go about your business, oblivious. Lisa buries herself and her problems in her garden.”

The criticism stung. “I’m not oblivious, Dolores.”

“You want to be. You try to be. You wriggle and squirm, and only when you’re slapped in the face with an unpleasant thing do you acknowledge it exists. Where’re you driving to, anyway?”

Eden’s first impulse was to sulk and not respond. Her second was to retaliate. Her third was to take it on the chin—sort of. “Montesse House,” she answered, then waited because she knew that wouldn’t sit well.

“You’re going out there alone, at night?” Dolores uttered a colorful curse of her own. “Are you a crazy girl? That place is falling apart. It’s haunted by three ghosts, did you know that? Haunted and decaying from the foundation up.”

Eden looked back, saw nothing and felt a stab of contrition because Dolores sounded so upset.

“Mary’s there,” she explained. “That’s why I’m going. I won’t explore the house. I know it’s in bad shape. It was a wreck ten years ago when I saw it for the first time.”

“I should never have told you about it,” Dolores moaned. “Three teenage girls gonna get all kinds of ideas about a tale like that. Still, the oldest girl has sense—or so I thought. Next thing I know, you’re traipsing off together to search for ghosts just because I said the curse was placed on our family by the original owners.” Annoyance gave way to exasperation. “Why is Mary there? She keeping a still we don’t know about?”

“She’s taking pictures.”

“In the dark?”

“It won’t be dark for another hour.” Although that could change, Eden realized. Between the black clouds, a road lined with moss-shrouded live oaks and only a patch of blue left to the west, it was a bit like driving into a witch’s cauldron. “It reminds me of a vampire’s lair out here.” She heard Dolores’s hand smacking her knee.

“You’re after vampires?”

“Mainly the atmosphere. It’s Mary’s deal, Dolores, not mine. I need to talk to her away from Lisa. Something’s…” She tried to think of how to put it. “Something’s wrong. Lisa’s not herself. I can’t say what it is exactly, but she feels off to me.”

Dolores’s tone softened. “This is a difficult time for her. Lisa won’t meet a problem head-on, and dirt holds no answers.”

Eden laughed. “You didn’t sleep last night, did you?”

The old woman chuckled. “That was bad, wasn’t it? Yes, I am tired. But mostly I’m worried. Not so much about Lisa. She didn’t bludgeon Maxwell Burgoyne. It’s you and the curse, Eden. I’ve had dreams lately, bad dreams, about death and pain. I see zombielike creatures and hear old voodoo chants. I see shadows as dark as night and inside them, people whose faces I can’t make out. But they’re after you, and they’re close.”

Her ominous tone more than her words sent a shiver down Eden’s spine. Then she caught a flash of pale blue light in her side mirror and swore.

“What’s that you said?” Dolores demanded.

“Someone’s close to me all right,” Eden told her. “But he’s no zombie. This person drives a car, and he’s a lousy tail. I’ll call you later, okay? I promise, this isn’t related to the curse,” she added before she pushed End.

The headlights disappeared among the trees, but as far as Eden knew the road wound without deviation down to Montesse and stopped there. Unless he turned around, her tail would wind up directly behind her.

She spied the crumbling roof first, followed by the whitewashed columns. Four of eight remained intact. The others had broken into large pieces. Several of those pieces had been hauled away by scavengers searching for remnants of a Civil War house.

In truth, Montesse had its roots in an era prior to the war. It had been dismantled piece by piece in France and brought to North America by ship in the late seventeenth century. The Dumont family servants had taken apart, transported and reconstructed the building under the keen eye of their matriarch, Therese Dumont. However, as Dolores told the story, it was Therese’s daughter Eva who’d actually placed the curse—on her father and the woman she’d considered to be the cause of her family’s destruction.

Eden braked at the end of the road where it opened to an overgrown clearing. Leaving the engine running, she waited for the source of the headlights to appear. When it didn’t, she tapped her fingers on the steering wheel and debated her next move. She could go back and search the road, keep waiting in her car, or find Mary and do what she’d come to do in the first place. Choosing the latter, she drove on until a fallen sycamore prevented her from getting any closer.

There was no sign of Mary’s car and only river sounds audible as she slid from her seat.

Dolores insisted Montesse was haunted. Given its gloomy appearance beneath a canopy of purple-black clouds and shadows long enough to conceal a bevy of vampires, Eden had no trouble believing in the possibility. Not that she actually did believe, but if she had and if they were to manifest themselves anywhere, here would be the perfect spot.

A chorus of distant bullfrogs accompanied her as she picked her way around the ruined building. She liked the Quarter better, she decided. Noise, light and color were friendly things. Solitude, peppered with thoughts of zombies, curses and voodoo queens was downright creepy, even for a resolved non-believer.

She spent the better part of forty minutes tramping around the grounds. As a last resort, she slogged through bushes and weeds to the riverbank. A sluggish current carried the water past a shore far too wild now to accommodate a boat dock.

Although she didn’t find Mary, Eden did locate her sister’s car. It was parked on a back driveway that must have led to Montesse from one of the other highway exits.

“At least I know you’re here,” she said, nursing a scratch on her arm. “That’s something.”

Aware of the deepening twilight and the fact that she hadn’t brought her flashlight, she headed back to the house. Mary’s voice resounded eerily in her head.

Voodoo child with Carib blood, and eyes of green. This is foreseen…

Through Dolores, Eden had inherited Haitian blood. But not, she promised herself, a mystical Haitian mindset. She and Lisa had been born with green eyes.

The eldest born to eldest grown, my pain shall bear. Believe. Beware.

Dolores had been the eldest grown, and of course Eden was the eldest born—but that meant nothing. Curses had no place in the twenty-first century.

For deeds long past, chère child will reap, my vengeance curse, of death—or worse.

Worse than death was a prospect Eden preferred not to consider, at least not as it pertained to the supernatural. But she had to admit, it was difficult to ignore a thing when you had a sister and grandmother who were forever bringing it up.

Determined not to dwell on such an unpleasant subject, Eden trudged through the mini jungle that had once been Therese Dumont’s prized garden to the back terrace. Gravel and broken concrete crunched underfoot the closer she drew to the old house. She spotted a beam of light—or possibly the flash of a camera—upstairs, and called to her sister. Receiving no answer, she tried again in a less patient tone.

“Are you up there, Mary?”

She heard a sound like stone grinding against stone and attempted to pinpoint it. She was standing beneath a wide protrusion that had once been the second-story gallery. It would have wrapped around the entire house and, in the back at least, allowed for a spectacular view of the river. Eden felt certain the sound she’d heard had come from the upper wall.

When the air stilled and the sound didn’t repeat, she gave up. Absolutely nothing moved, not even the deadhead flowers hanging by a thread to their stems.

One last time, she tipped her head back and called to her sister.

To her surprise, she heard what might have been an answer. Something echoed inside the house.

That meant she’d have to break her promise to Dolores—probably her neck as well. Pushing aside a tangle of vines, she backtracked through the garden.

An old pergola hung at a precarious angle above her. Like everything else, it was choked with weeds, many of them dead, all of them clinging. Thorns snagged her pants, making her grateful she’d worn a pair of old hikers.

A granite cross and a cracked marble headstone lay across the path. Eden didn’t see a raised plot, which probably meant someone had tried to make off with the stone, failed and wound up abandoning it. She looked, but couldn’t read the writing in the poor light. Respectful of its significance, she stepped over the stone and continued on toward the terrace.

Three wide steps appeared through the dense foliage. Lisa, she mused, would love to get her green thumbs on a place like this.

Eden yanked down one last vine and spotted the bottom step. Scratched, but glad to be out of the maze, she muttered, “Vampires live in cellars by day, Mary, not second-story bedrooms. Even fly-by-night magazine editors can tell the difference between a bed in a crumbling master suite and a coffin in the basement.”

A train rolled past across the river. The whistle reached her over the croaking bullfrogs.

She looked back at the fallen headstone and for a moment was tempted to get her flashlight. If the stone was Eva Dumont’s, she could tell Dolores…

“No.” She stopped the thought flat. The past was the past, over and done. No matter what Dolores believed, there were no such things as ghosts. And even if there were, if she didn’t hurt them, why should they bother her?

The grinding noise reached her again. Tilting her head back, Eden glimpsed a rectangular object above. Then she spied a blur of motion and felt a pair of strong arms wrap themselves around her. She saw dark hair and a flurry of leaves and felt her body leave the ground. A second later, she landed on her back on the garden path.

Stunned, she watched as a large white planter crashed onto the very spot where she’d been standing.

Chapter Four

It took Eden a long, startled moment to regain her breath and her bearings. When she was able to roll over, she found herself staring into the face of Armand LaMorte.

He’d managed through some bizarre midair twist to land beneath her and at the same time give her a full terrifying view of what had almost happened. While part of her was grateful, another part wanted to know what the hell was going on.

Strangely calm, she said, “Should I bother to ask?”

He narrowed his eyes at the upper balcony. “You ask. I’ll find out.”

Eden realized she was still lying on top of him. Pressing her palms into his shoulders, she pushed up, but he caught her before she could escape.

“Did you hit your head?”

She touched a sore spot above her left eye. “On yours, I think.”

Crouching, he used his thumb and forefinger to trap her chin and tip her head back. “Am I clear or a blur?”

All too clear, she thought and let her own hand fall into her lap. “I can see you, Armand. What happened?”

“Good question. If you’re not hurt, I’ll find us a good answer.”

“Don’t move,” he called as he disappeared through an ancient set of double doors.

After a moment, her gaze slid to the side. There, not ten feet in front of her, was all that remained of a rectangular concrete planter. She’d noticed it on the gallery wall when she’d stepped over the headstone in the garden.

But weren’t those pony walls as wide as the steps below? It should have taken a small earthquake to move the thing. The inside had been filled with dirt and weeds, so it must have weighed several hundred pounds.

“Eden?” Mary appeared around the side of the house. “What was that crash…?” She appeared shocked when she spied the wreckage. “Whoa. Well, that sure wasn’t here a few minutes ago. Are you okay?”

“If alive qualifies as okay, then yes.” Eden let Mary pull her to her feet, felt the ground wobble and rested her spine against one of the pergola supports. It would pass, she promised herself. She hadn’t hit the ground that hard. “As a point of interest,” she asked, “did a gorgeous man in a black shirt and jeans fly past you a minute ago?”

“I was trying to get into the cellar,” Mary replied. “And I haven’t had a sniff of a gorgeous man since the weekend. The only person other than me who’s here is B.J.”

Eden closed her eyes. “And B.J. is…?”

“Mostly grunts and muscles. I met him at a party and figured he could help me arrange the vampire scene so to speak. I’d have mentioned him on the phone, but you hung up.” She nudged a fragment of the fallen planter with the toe of her boot. “Did this thing almost flatten you?”

“Almost.”

“You have good reflexes, Eden.”

“I have a tail.”

Mary eased away from both her sister and the rubble. “What you have, babe, is a curse.” Her arms twitched. “Man, I’m so glad I’m the youngest.”

Eden left the pergola. The ground had stopped moving, but her head throbbed down to her shoulders. “When did you lose your muscle man?”

“Twenty, twenty-five minutes ago. He saw a spider.”

Eden’s gaze rose to the second story. “How strong is he?”

Mary flexed her bare arm. “He’s got biceps like Popeye and a vocabulary to match. But, hey, you need a tree felled or a door ripped off its hinges, he’s your—” She stopped. “Wait a minute, you’re not thinking… My God!” she exclaimed. “You are thinking.”

“Not very well yet, but Mary, planters as big and heavy as this one don’t just fall. It was pushed, or levered or something. I heard a grinding sound right before it came down. And don’t talk to me about vindictive ghosts. I went through that with Dolores earlier.”

Mary sniffed. “Did you go through the curse, too?”

Eden released a heavy breath. “There’s no curse, okay? People move heavy objects, voodoo rhymes don’t.”

Mary skirted the dirt mound. “Go ahead and deny, Eden. Dolores will insist it was the curse. Think about it. Even if she does live in the swamp, she’s an educated woman. True, her mind’s a little left of center, but you don’t get a degree from Loyola unless it’s deserved. So, there you are, an intelligent woman believes.”

“This is a pointless conversation.” Eden returned to the path to view the upper level. She didn’t see a flashlight beam anywhere—assuming Armand had been carrying a flashlight. Pushing on her temples with her fingers, she murmured, “I should have gone to Concordia.”

“You should go into hiding.”

“It’s a thought,” Eden agreed, but her reasons had more to do with a certain dark-haired cop than the family curse.

Mary snapped restless fingers. “I wonder if B.J. went back to the car.” Joining Eden on the path, she tapped her sister’s shoulder. “Uh, about this gorgeous guy you mentioned… You did say gorgeous, right?”

Had she? On her knees, Eden brushed dirt from the marble headstone. “Maybe,” she conceded. “I didn’t mean to.” Because it was too dark now to make out the worn letters, she abandoned her task and measured the distance between the veranda and the gallery by eye. “That wall up there is at least two feet wide, wouldn’t you say?”

“No idea. I was in and out like Speedy Gonzales. I don’t need to bump into a ghost with a bone to pick over something one of my ancestors did.”

Eden let it go. Where was Armand, and why hadn’t he come onto the gallery? “I’ll bet you drive a car with tinted headlights,” she accused under her breath.

“You’re acting a little weird, Eden,” Mary remarked.

Eden heard nerves beneath her sister’s irritation and lowered her gaze. “Someone in a car with blue-tinted headlights followed me out here tonight.”

“Okay, I’ll buy that. Just don’t go S.L. on me.” At Eden’s uncomprehending expression, Mary clarified, “Spooky Lisa. She has moments lately of, you know, going off to Mars. She’s done it before, it’s just that since Maxwell died, one wrong word and, bam, she’s in a funk.”

Not a prolonged one, but Eden knew what Mary meant. She’d seen them, too, those moments when Lisa appeared to put the world around her on hold.

Maybe in the end that’s all there was to Lisa’s sudden standoffishness. A major disappointment had led to the death of their natural father and a near murder charge. Who wouldn’t react to something so dreadful? One thing was certain, funk or not, Lisa simply wasn’t capable of committing the kind of violent act that had ended Maxwell Burgoyne’s life.

“This could be cool.” Dismissing her sister’s problems, Mary returned to the terrace.

Eden had to squint to see her. She was only twenty feet away, but darkness had pretty much settled. In fact, the shadows had grown so thick under the balcony that little more than Mary’s silver belt buckle remained visible.

“Coffin dirt,” Mary declared. The buckle dipped as she did. “I’ve lost the light, but you could hold a beam on it. We’ll make a body impression, spread the chunks of cement around.”

Eden called up to the gallery, “Armand, are you there?”

Mary’s heels clopped on the terrace tiles as she rearranged the fallen planter. “I’m no good at this. Stop shouting, Eden, and help me here. It’s incredibly… Ahh!”

Her sentence ended on a yelp. Her belt buckle vanished.

And a pair of hands seized Eden from behind…

EDEN’S REACTION was instinctive. She rammed both elbows into the stomach of the person holding her. She heard a muffled “Oomph,” and felt the hands on her shoulders tighten.

A man growled in warning, but he was cut off by the click of a trigger being drawn back.

“Let her go. Do it slowly, and move away. Now.”

Eden recognized Armand’s voice.

Whoever he was talking to released her slowly as instructed. The moment she was free, Eden spun—and did an immediate double take. A more superstitious person might have mistaken the man for a troll.

Deciding that Armand was the lesser of two evils, she backed across the uneven ground to his side. She found herself strangely fascinated by the man whose hairy arms and bushy beard appeared to be the color of a ripe tomato. “Something happened to Mary right before he grabbed me,” she said.

A break in the clouds allowed a three-quarter moon to illuminate the area. Eden started for the steps. The man opened his mouth, took a second look at Armand’s Magnum and promptly closed it.

“No problem here,” Mary called before Eden reached the terrace. “Don’t everyone rush to my rescue at once. I only tripped and gave myself a concussion.”

“Stay where you are,” Armand told her.

The redhead was downright squat, muscular to the max, but shorter than Eden’s height of five-eight by a couple of inches. Even so, his torso looked broader than a tree trunk and with arms like his, he could undoubtedly lift the front end of her car.

“Are you B.J.?” Eden asked.

“Bobby John Finnegan.” His gaze was fixed on the gun barrel aimed at his throat. “I heard voices. Reckoned one of ’em might be Mary’s.”

“Where did you come from?”

“Front of the house.” He pointed. “I used the driveway on account of I don’t like walking in tall weeds.”

“Afraid you’ll fall into Middle Earth?” Armand suggested.

“Snakes like weeds. I don’t like snakes.”

Mary strode over, probing the back of her head. “So, Eden, is this your gorgeous guy?”

Vague amusement sparked Armand’s eyes, but he kept his gun on B.J. “Do you know this man?” he asked her.

Mary shrugged. “We came here together. I didn’t know he had crawly-phobia.” She studied Armand’s features. “I guess you are sort of gorgeous, although it’s hard to tell in the dark with a weapon pointed in the general direction of my face.”

Armand tucked the gun into his shoulder holster. “Have you been inside the house?”

He directed his question at B.J. who appeared horrified by the thought. “Are you nuts? It’s bug central in there. I was looking for Mary. Saw you.” He nodded at Eden. “You were exploring down by the river and around those old shacks out back. Heard you call her name, so I knew you were looking for her, too. I’d have hollered, but you mighta wanted me to check out the shacks, and that wasn’t happening in this lifetime.”

“My hero,” Mary sneered. “Okay, I’m out of here, vampires be damned.”

Her cranky tone brought a smile to Eden’s lips. She gestured at the tangled garden. “Do you want Armand to walk you to your car?”

“My camera bag’s on the terrace.” Mary still sounded irked. “I brought a big flashlight. And B.J.’s got a second one stuck to his belt.”

“He can go, right?” Eden asked Armand.

“To New Orleans, yeah. We’ll have a chat at his place tomorrow.”

B.J. glanced at the holstered gun. “Sure, no problem. You, uh, need my address?”

“It’d help.” B.J. gave him the necessary information, cringed when Mary started along the garden path, then squared his shoulders and followed.

Arms folded, Eden stared at Armand and waited for him to speak.

“Go ahead,” she prompted when he didn’t. “I’m open to any and all explanations. Come up with a good one and I might even believe it.”

“Let me see your head.”

She slapped a palm against his chest to hold him off. “We’ve done this already, Detective. No more touching. You saved me from a falling planter and stopped B.J. from crushing my bones to powder. I’m honestly grateful for those things, but I still want to know why you followed me home last night and out here tonight.”

“I didn’t.” Smiling a little, he plucked a leaf from her hair. “You look a lot like your sister, Eden, but somehow your beauty’s more intriguing to me. Why is that?”

She smiled back. “Because I have a brother who taught me how to box in the third grade and at the same time knock a man’s front teeth out if he makes me mad by not answering my questions, maybe?”

Armand chuckled. “You fix teeth. You’re not likely to knock them out.”

“I can do both if you’re up for a spar. I keep a pair of bag mitts in my trunk, and you know where my New Orleans office is. Why did you follow me?”

“I told you, I didn’t.” He snagged another leaf. “You have incredible eyes, do you know that?”

Torn between laughing and punching him, she opted for poking him in the chest. “Car, pal. Yours. Now.”

His mouth curved. “You don’t trust me, do you?”

Eyes as dark as his should not, she thought with a sigh, be legal. “I want to see your headlights, Armand.”

“There must be something more interesting I could show you.”

Her brows went up. “Maxwell Burgoyne’s murderer would work.”

His breath stirred the hair on her forehead, that’s how close he’d gotten to her. “Say more personal, then.”

She wasn’t up to playing games with him. But neither was she about to back down. “Where are you parked?”

“Near the fallen sycamore.”

She kept wanting to stare at his mouth. She forced her eyes upward instead. “I thought you didn’t follow me.”

“I parked beside you. That isn’t following.”

“And you knew where I was because…?”

He trapped a strand of her hair between his fingers and stroked it with his thumb. “Maybe I’m telepathic, Eden. My mother claimed to be.”

Although she was fascinated by his face, Eden held tight to her train of thought. “My grandmother believes in an old family curse, Armand. I’m a DDS. I believe in science and sometimes in karma. I’m not big on telepathy, and no matter how many times you try to distract me, I still want to see your headlights.”

He studied her through his lashes. His gaze lingered just a little too long on her lips.

Not good, she decided and stepped back. She planted her hand once again on his chest and this time locked her elbow. “I want—”

“Yes, I know.” His eyes glinted. “Headlights. Explanations. Remember, you’ve been avoiding my questions all day as well.”

The more distance she put between them, the more in control Eden felt. She started toward the front of the house. “I had a full schedule when I began my day, and I squeezed in two emergency reconstructions at lunch. I assume—” she glanced backward at the eerie silhouette that was Montesse House “—there was no sign of anyone inside.”

“No sign I could detect, but someone could have been there. I saw footprints, inside and out. Leaves, too, and litter.”

For the first time since the planter had fallen, Eden allowed uncertainty to creep in. “It wasn’t an accident,” she said without thinking. “I heard the base move.”

Armand surprised her by nodding. “There was no reason for it to fall, and coincidence is a thing I seldom accept.” Catching her easily, he draped an arm over her shoulder and pointed. “There it is, behind your car as promised.”

Eden halted. “You drive an SUV?”

He smiled. “You make it sound like a crime.”

It had been a car behind her, a darker, late-model car, she was sure of that. Biting her lip, she shrugged off his arm and headed for the front of the vehicle. “Would you mind turning on your headlights?”

“I can think of better things to do, Eden.” But he opened the door and switched them on.

She stared at the twin beams until her eyes stung, then turned away in frustration. Not even a little blue. “Okay, you didn’t follow me, at least not in a way that I could see.”

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