She staggered, slamming against a hard wall, which turned out to be a broad-shouldered body

The body had a pair of arms that caught and steadied her in a comforting embrace. The guy had blatant sex appeal in a lean body that scraped six feet and moved with a sexual, confident gait. Now, like half the female population in New Orleans, Christy found herself susceptible to this man, experiencing all these treacherous sensations. This dizzy breathlessness as the pair of brash green eyes continued to hold her gaze. This sudden heat in her insides as she stared up at the bold face under its thatch of dark hair. And this weakness in her limbs as the powerful arms continued to pin her against his chest.

“If you go around getting into trouble just to get my attention,” Dallas said in a deliberately seductive voice, “things are bound to happen. Really dangerous things.”

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

Cupid’s bow is loaded at Harlequin Intrigue with four fabulous stories of breathtaking romantic suspense—starting with the continuation of Cassie Miles’s COLORADO SEARCH AND RESCUE miniseries. In Wedding Captives, lovers reunite on a mountaintop…unfortunately they’re also snowbound with a madman!

And there’s no better month to launch our new modern gothic continuity series MORIAH’S LANDING. Amanda Stevens emerges from the New England fog with Secret Sanctuary, the first of four titles coming out over the next several months. You can expect all of the classic themes you love in these stories, plus more of the contemporary edge you’ve come to expect from our brand of romantic suspense.

You know what can happen In the Blink of an Eye…? Julie Miller does! And you can find out, too, in the next installment of her TAYLOR CLAN series.

Finally, Jean Barrett takes you to New Orleans for some Private Investigations with battling P.I.’s. It’s a regular showdown in the French Quarter—where absolutely anything goes.

So celebrate Valentine’s Day with the most confounding mystery of all…that of the heart.

Deep, rich chocolate wishes,

Denise O’Sullivan

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

Private Investigations

Jean Barrett

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

If setting has anything to do with it, Jean Barrett claims she has no reason not to be inspired. She and her husband live on Wisconsin’s scenic Door Peninsula in an antique-filled country cottage overlooking Lake Michigan. A teacher for many years, she left the classroom to write full-time. She is the author of a number of romance novels.

Write to Jean at P.O. Box 623, Sister Bay, WI 54234.

Books by Jean Barrett

HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

308—THE SHELTER OF HER ARMS

351—WHITE WEDDING

384—MAN OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN

475—FUGITIVE FATHER

528—MY LOVER’S SECRET

605—THE HUNT FOR HAWKE’S DAUGHTER

652—PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Christy Hawke—Both her heart and her P.I. agency are at risk.

Dallas McFarland—The sexy P.I. has more on his agenda than he is willing to admit.

Denise—Christy’s assistant gives her a hard time, but she is a loyal friend.

Laura Hollister—Her death is shadowed by a web of lies and deceit.

Glenn Hollister—Christy’s ex-boyfriend is desperate for her help.

Monica Claiborne—She trusts no one but Dallas to solve her sister’s murder.

Daisy—The little girl is threatened by the loss of her father.

Camille Leveau—Does the voodoo queen have something to hide?

Marty Bornowski—The asphalt king is protecting more than his daughter.

Dutch Vesey—He’s an undesirable character, but is he also a killer?

Buzz Purreau—The young jeweler has no secrets, or does he?

Alistair St. Leger—Christy’s congenial neighbor is all too willing to help.

Edgar Evers—The lawyer startles Christy with a surprising revelation.

To new and used bookstores everywhere.

Your support is wonderful.

Bless you for caring.

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

Epilogue

The Altar

It was no more than a narrow shelf behind a hidden door in a darkened room, but it held all that he required to serve his demonic deity. A pair of black candles burned, their flickering light revealing on the shelf a tiny black coffin, the skull of a goat and several finger bones. There was also a flat dish containing oil. In it he placed the strands of auburn hair he had snipped from the head of his victim. He was ready.

Seizing one of the candles, he passed it back and forth over the dish before applying its flame to the oil. The hair slowly curled and burned in the ignited oil, filling his nostrils with a sickly sweet odor. As he watched the strands being consumed, he chanted a soft, rhythmic incantation.

When the hair was no more than a powdery ash on the surface of the hot oil, he began to pray. “You instruct us, Master, that those who transgress must pay for their transgressions. Hear me, Master, and know that she will trouble us no more…”

Above the shelf hung a small mirror. In the weaving light of the candles his face was reflected in the shadowy, distorted glass. A face that was lurid, glowing with triumph, for he knew now what it felt like to have taken the life of a human being. And, if necessary, he could kill again.

Prologue

New Orleans

Dallas McFarland was history. They had lost all swaggering, hot-eyed six feet of him at a fender bender over on Canal. McFarland had been trapped in the mob of gawkers that had gathered when a minivan had run a light and smacked into a panel truck. So much for his celebrated reputation as a private investigator.

Chortled wasn’t a word that Christy Hawke ordinarily associated with herself, but on this occasion it seemed appropriate. She did feel like chortling. McFarland had been a thorn in her side from the day she had opened her own agency, robbing her of one client after another.

Not this time, thank you. She intended to demonstrate her worth, win this contest of skills, and secure the job she badly needed. Make that desperately needed.

But not by being overconfident, Christy sharply reminded herself. She and her subject might have accidentally shaken McFarland, but there was always the chance that Christy could also be given the slip. Not that her young target had manifested any sign yet of being followed. With all the negligent ease that only a teenager is capable of, she continued to wind her way through the tourists sauntering along Decatur Street, never once turning her head.

“Hey, my daughter is tricky,” Marty Bornowski had gruffly cautioned them. “You wouldn’t be the first tail this kid has managed to ditch. That’s why I need the best and can afford to pay for it. So, providing one of you can show me whether she’s still meeting this little punk on the sly, you get all the work I can throw your way.”

Christy wasn’t forgetting the warning as she kept her objective in sight. However, it did seem to her that if his daughter was determined to evade her father’s surveillance, she was going about it all wrong. Because there was no way, absolutely no way, that Brenda Bornowski could blend with any crowd, not even here in the French Quarter where the eccentric were hardly remarkable.

From her chunky shoes to her black leather miniskirt, and cropped hair, with spiky tufts shaded from orange to silver-blond, Brenda proclaimed her presence. Then went on to confirm it with a lavender-blue mouth and a particularly vivid shade of green fingernail polish. And that didn’t take into account her triple-pierced ears, pierced nose, pierced lower lip and conceivably other pierced areas not yet evident to Christy.

Interesting, she thought. It was just possible that Brenda was carrying more metal on her body than the heavy equipment her father used in his asphalt business, which had Christy wondering if she ought to start paving roads herself. Had to be a lot more profitable than private investigating, at which she was barely surviving. And that was on the good days. She had yet to determine if this would be one of them. That depended on Brenda.

Ah, the Jax Brewery! That was where they were going. She watched Brenda cross the street and head toward the blocky, multi-storied structure that had been converted from an old brewery into a trendy shopping mall. Following at a safe distance, Christy quickly checked the street behind her before swinging onto the center after her subject. Wonderful! McFarland was still missing in action. Brenda Bornowski was hers!

Brenda started up on the top level and worked her way down from shop to shop, Christy drifting after her. The girl seemed in no hurry. She tried on an awesome jacket in an explosion of colors, which she didn’t buy. She chatted on her cell phone, presumably to a girlfriend and examined a selection of lingerie so blatantly erotic in nature it would have made a Bourbon Street stripper blush. And as she continued to aimlessly wander the mall, chewed her way through a bag of licorice sticks acquired from a candy stand near the elevator.

What Brenda didn’t do was meet anyone, male or female. Nor at any point did she indicate the slightest concern over the possibility that she was being shadowed. Which, even as careful as Christy was to remain unobserved, should have been her first clue that trouble was on its way.

The problem wasn’t Christy’s lack of alertness, however, but the mounting tension that accompanied it. This was always a threat to concentration. She couldn’t help it. She had so much riding on this contest that she risked taking the brim off her baseball cap from tugging on it, a habit whenever her nerves were under siege.

Come on, Brenda. Make my day.

Things got a bit more interesting when they returned to the ground floor and her subject took them into a bookstore. A bookstore? It didn’t strike Christy as Brenda’s kind of scene. Had to be the young clerk and his eager smile. Sure. The two of them lost no time engaging themselves in a leisurely conversation, Brenda leaning against the counter as she flirted with him.

Christy went into action behind the paperbacks. From the shoulder bag that was far too large for her petite frame, but contained all her essentials, including her Glock semiautomatic, she removed a pocket-size tape recorder and dutifully reported the encounter in a low murmur.

“Don’t think this can be the, uh, little punk she’s meeting. No tattoos. At least none currently visible. I’d say he’s harmless…”

By the time Christy replaced the recorder in her bag, her subject had left the counter and was strolling up one aisle and down the next. Christy followed, pretending to examine the titles. When they reached the end of the last aisle, Brenda abruptly swung around and faced her. Except she wasn’t Brenda. Same chunky shoes, same black leather miniskirt, even the same hair, but definitely not Brenda Bornowski.

Christy must have clearly registered her shock since a gleeful grin appeared on the girl’s face. And that’s when she understood two things. The conversation on the cell phone upstairs had been a lot more than just gossip. A cunning Brenda, spotting Daddy’s tail, had summoned Best Friend to the mall.

The second thing Christy understood was that she should never have taken her eyes off her subject. Not even for those forty-five seconds with the recorder, because that’s all Brenda had needed to pull this switch on her.

Gone!

But maybe not. From the corner of her eye, Christy caught a flash of orange and silver blond through the expanse of glass at the side of the store. Brenda was outside and on her way to the top of the levee!

And I’ll be damned if I lose her.

The little stinker was far too important to Christy, which was why she streaked out of the store, out of the building, toward the river.

Above the blare of a Dixieland band playing on the Brewery’s restaurant terrace came the hoot of a steamboat whistle. It announced the imminent departure of one of the replicas of the old paddle wheelers that offered hourly excursions along the river. And Christy knew, just knew, that Brenda was making for that vessel.

Determined not to let her quarry escape, she struggled, squirmed and squeezed her way through the tourists that jammed the area. Progress, she was making progress. She caught a glimpse of Brenda racing up the stairs ahead of her. And then it all went wrong again.

A bevy of elderly ladies wearing badges that identified them as conventioneers swarmed around her, cutting her off, trapping her. One of them, who had an overbite and a raspy voice, demanded of Christy, “Okay, tell us how we get to the Streetcar Named Desire.”

New Orleans always treated its out of town visitors with warmth and courtesy. Or tried to. But, myth or reality, Christy was in no mood for Southern hospitality. “Uh, I don’t think it exists anymore, or else these days it’s a bus; either way I don’t know. Now if you’ll just let me by—”

“Oh, not that one. I’m talking about the Streetcar Named Desire that’s a club. You know, the one featuring exotic male dancers?”

Christy blinked at her. “No, I don’t know, so if you’ll excuse me—”

The raspy voice sounded injured this time. “But he said you’d be certain to know.”

“Who?”

“That sweet man up on the levee who pointed you out to us.”

That got Christy’s attention. “What man? What did he look like?”

“Why, I’m not sure.”

“I am,” piped one of her eager companions. “He had a dynamite smile and a butt to die for.”

Dallas McFarland! Jolted by the knowledge that she hadn’t shaken him after all—because she didn’t doubt for the space of a heartbeat that it was him, and never mind how he’d managed to catch up with them—Christy beat her way through the ranks of conventioneers.

There was another blast from the boat whistle. Frantic now, she sprinted up the stairs, arrived breathlessly on the broad top of the levee, but was too late. The paddle wheeler, passengers crowding the decks, was drawing away from the landing. Up near the prow stood a smirking Brenda Bornowski, not yet aware of the tall figure of Dallas McFarland stationed at the rail several safe lengths away from her.

The wicked grin that her infuriating rival directed at Christy down on the levee, informed her that not only had she screwed up what should have been an easy surveillance, but that he had somehow managed to snatch another potential client from under her nose. And just to be certain there was no question of that, McFarland stabbed a finger in the direction of a small figure who had arrived at Christy’s side. She looked down to see a boy in a Saints T-shirt extending toward her a rectangle of cream-colored pasteboard.

“Guy on the boat said to give you this.”

He delivered the offering and melted away. And while the Dixieland band went on playing under the April sunshine, Christy looked at what he had placed in her hand. It was one of her own business cards printed with Hawke Detective Agency against a logo of a golden hawk. A bold, insolent black X had been struck across the face of the card from corner to corner.

Chapter One

It fronted on Royal Street, and it had just about everything an old building in the historic district is supposed to have—lacy wrought iron balconies, shutters at the long windows, gas lanterns. A dream of a place, Christy would think whenever she returned to it. Ordinarily, that is.

The carriageway that tunneled through the building framed a view of the courtyard. Whenever Christy emerged from the dim passage, she would find herself delighted all over again by the fountain and vines and tubs of flowers. Ordinarily, that is.

The old converted slave quarters were at the rear of the courtyard. Christy occupied the small structure, her agency on the ground floor and her apartment tucked above it on the second level. It was a cramped arrangement, but, hey, this was the French Quarter and rents were high. So she would count herself lucky that the regular tenant, in a hurry to take a job overseas, had subleased the place to her at an affordable rent. Ordinarily, that is.

But not this afternoon. This afternoon Christy was oblivious to all this quaint charm—which she was in danger of losing anyway, reasonable rent or not—because the only thing she had time for as she stormed across the courtyard and through the door marked Hawke Detective Agency, was the image inside her head of Dallas McFarland sinking slowly in a bottomless pool of quicksand.

The office was silent. But since her assistant, Denise, was bouncing and swaying happily at her desk, Christy assumed that the jazz music she relished was pouring through the radio plug stuck in her ear. Fond though Christy was of the woman, she didn’t consider her much of an assistant. However, as Denise was a retired bus driver with an adequate pension, she was willing to work cheap. This was because she had a regrettable longing for P.I. excitement, the kind of action that was in short supply lately at the agency, a situation Denise frequently grumbled about.

The radio plug came out of her ear with a jerk as Christy slammed over to her own desk and slumped in her chair.

“Uh-oh. Looks like the Prince of Darkness beat us out of the running again.”

“I don’t want to talk about it!” Christy snapped. And then, surging to her feet, she proceeded to do exactly that as she prowled from one end of the small office to the other with Denise’s gaze solemnly following her. “I didn’t like the idea anyway! A controlling father wanting to spy on his daughter just because he thinks her boyfriend is no good and up to mischief! All right, so he’s a rich father, and we needed the money!”

“Uh-huh.”

“But a contest like that? Come on, it’s dumb! I shouldn’t have agreed to it!”

“Uh-uh.”

“I mean, why didn’t he just pick one of us, instead of pitting us against each other?”

“Maybe he gets his jollies that way.”

“And McFarland—McFarland just loved it!”

“Sure, he’s bad.”

“Got that right! Arrogant, unprofessional, no principles!”

“And one sexy dude.”

Christy rounded on her traitorous assistant. “What is it with you and the women in this town and that man? That—that bottom-feeder!”

“Guess by that you don’t want to hear what happened here while I was out to lunch. Guess you’re in no mood for it, huh?”

“What?”

“That the answering machine got itself full up with messages, the fax machine is spitting faxes all over the place, the computer is loaded with e-mail and they’re all from your mama in Chicago lookin’ to hear from you.”

“I see. And all this happened while I was gone. Could it be possible, Denise, that you had a longer lunch hour than you planned?”

Denise thought about it. “Could be. Us full-figured gals need to keep up our energy.”

“I don’t suppose there’s anything else on one of those machines. Like maybe someone needing to hire a P.I. with money no object?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“In that case…” Christy returned to her desk and reached reluctantly for the phone. She hated having to call her mother, knowing exactly what she was going to hear before she heard it. No way around it.

She dialed home, or what used to be home for her, which was the main office of the Hawke Detective Agency founded by her mother and father back in Chicago.

“Hawke Agency.” The familiar voice was cheerful, efficient. It belonged to her mother, Moura Hawke, the energetic doyenne of both the family and its agency, which had branches throughout the country operated by Christy and her four siblings.

“It’s me, Ma. What’s up?” As if she couldn’t guess.

“A celebration, my darling. I hope. Did you win the Bornowski case?”

“Afraid not, Ma.” Oh, how humiliating it was for Christy to admit her defeat. She was twenty-six years old and still regarded as the baby who had to be protected from the big bad world, still fighting to be recognized by her family as a P.I. in her own right.

“Oh.” The eagerness faded from Moura’s voice. “I suppose it went to McFarland?”

“Looks like it.”

“I’m sorry.” There was a pause, and then Moura’s tone became very gentle. Christy realized what was coming. “The thing is, I’ve been doing all the accounts for the first quarter, and…well, basically, sweetheart, you don’t have a quarter.”

“I know, Ma. Things have been a little slow.”

Slow? They had ground to a halt, and both of them knew it. The other phone in the office rang and Denise answered it. Christy paid no attention. She was too busy being heart-broken. She had done everything but promise her firstborn to convince her parents she was competent enough to open her own branch of the agency, and now she was on the sharp edge of losing it.

Moura had a suggestion. “Eden has a break between cases. What if she came over from Charleston and just sort of helped you to—”

“No!” Christy loved her family, Eden included, but she was damned if she was going to let her sister rush to New Orleans to try to save her agency for her. If she had to go down, she would sink on her own, thank you very much.

“Then what about Devlin?” Moura said, offering Christy’s eldest brother.

It was Denise, bless her, who rescued Christy. She had lowered her own phone and, with a lot of head-bobbing and eye-rolling, was signaling Christy to take the call.

“Absolutely not. Look, Ma, I have to go. There’s a call for me on the other line. I think it may be a new client. Love to Pop.”

“But I haven’t told you yet what your father—”

“Later, Ma.” She hung up and eagerly whispered to Denise, “Is it a potential client? Do I get a miracle?”

“Now how’d I know if he is or isn’t? But you’d better pick up. He sounds serious. Real serious.”

Christy snatched up her phone, stabbed in the other line, greeted the caller with a brisk, “Christy Hawke speaking,” and felt her heart lurch in her breast as the mellow male voice, from a past she thought she had buried, spoke to her earnestly.

“It’s me, Christy. Glenn.”

“How are you, Glenn?” Now how did she manage to sound so cool when her heart was still misbehaving?

“Not so good, actually.” He seemed surprised that she could ask such a thing. “I need to see you, Christy.”

“Personal or professional?”

“Professional,” he said.

Should she resent him for contacting her like this? No, she decided, she had made peace with that particular episode in her past, forgiven him long ago. “Are you in trouble, Glenn?”

He paused. “Maybe.”

“Like to tell me about it?”

“I think we need to get together as soon as possible.”

Christy could appreciate his wish for a meeting. Clients rarely wanted to discuss their problems over the phone. “I’m free right now.” Oh, boy, was she free. “Do you know where my office is?”

“Uh, yes, but my lawyer doesn’t want anyone knowing I’m worried enough to consult a private investigator, and if I’m seen going into your office…”

A lawyer? Just what kind of trouble were they talking about here?

“Look,” he went on, “I’m already downtown. It was…well, necessary for me to be here.” Was there an implication in that she was supposed to understand? “So if we could meet somewhere….”

“Name it.”

“The Café Du Monde?”

“Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be there.”

“See you then. And, Christy?”

“Yes?”

“The circumstances being what they are, I appreciate your willingness to offer your services.”

Was that something else she was supposed to understand, she wondered as she put down the phone. She didn’t, of course, but in fifteen minutes she hoped to. Denise was ready to pounce as Christy got to her feet.

“We got us a client?”

“I think so.”

Denise grunted her satisfaction. “Maybe finally get some action around here. Where you goin’?”

“Upstairs. I need to change before I meet him.”

“Must be some real important dude. Must be somebody you got to impress.”

“Never mind.”

Drat the woman and those shrewd jet eyes of hers, Christy thought as she tripped up the narrow stairway to her tiny apartment overhead. It was just like Denise to practically accuse her of wanting to look as attractive as possible when Glenn saw her again after all these years. All right, that’s just what she wanted to do and she was a pathetic fool for caring. So what?

So what if Glenn Hollister had a wife now and was a father, as well, though she’d heard his marriage was foundering? And so what if he’d dumped Christy for the elegant Laura Claiborne, an episode which had left Christy’s heart grievously scarred? Yeah, so what?

She didn’t have an answer for that reckless so what until, about to burrow into the battered old armoire for an outfit guaranteed to please, she caught her image in the long mirror on the door. There was Christy Hawke in long shorts and running shoes, her honey-colored hair crammed under a Cubs baseball cap. Okay, so that much of Chicago was still a part of her. But, hey, it wasn’t her fault. If New Orleans ever got itself a team, she was willing to switch her loyalty.

The brim of the cap shaded a piquant face and a pair of aquamarine eyes that defiantly said, “Here I am. This is what you get.” So why was she getting ready to turn herself into some kind of baby doll? Forget it. Whatever dumb torch she might once have carried for Glenn Hollister, he would have to take her as she was.

And so much for all those so what’s, she concluded as she firmly closed the door of the armoire, grabbed her bag and headed for the stairs.

THE CAFE DU MONDE was located on the river in the old French Market, which had once supplied the city with fresh fruits and vegetables. These days, the long colonnaded structure contained shops, most of them serving the tourist trade. The place was close enough to Christy’s office to permit her to reach it on foot, but just far enough away to put her curiosity about Glenn Hollister into overdrive as she walked there.

That curiosity was at maximum speed by the time she arrived and stood searching the outdoor tables. They were crowded with the usual tourists hunched over beignets and café au lait. Christy was still looking for Glenn when he appeared suddenly at her side.

“I don’t deserve this,” he said out of nowhere in that kind voice that had always been a pleasure to hear. “Not after the way I let you go.”

She turned to face him and realized immediately that she had probably made a big mistake. He was slender, fair-haired and had a face that could still soften her heart. Oh, yeah, not just probably but definitely a mistake for her to be here. On the other hand, with the wolf at her door….

The moment deserved something brilliant, witty, but all she had to offer was an inane, “Helping people is what I do, Glenn. Uh, where can we—”

“I have a table over here.”

He conducted her to a shady corner and tried to seat her so that she faced the view. But since that view was of the nearby Jax Brewery, the scene of her recent defeat, Christy preferred to take a chair looking inward.

When Glenn had settled across from her, and they had ordered coffee neither of them wanted, Christy treated herself to a second examination of the man who had once meant—well, if not everything to her, pretty close to it. And she decided all over again that, yeah, he still looked good. He also looked like hell, which was something she’d missed the first time around. There was a grimness in the little smile he directed at her, a haunted expression in his eyes.

“The circumstances being what they are,” she said, leaning toward him. “That was what you said on the phone. Does that have an explanation, Glenn?”

His gentle gray eyes widened in disbelief. “You don’t know? How is that possible when it must be all over the news?”

She’d been so busy fighting Dallas McFarland for possession of Brenda Bornowski that she hadn’t watched a newscast or read a newspaper since early yesterday. And, of course, Denise couldn’t have told her anything. All Denise ever listened to was her beloved jazz. “Sorry,” she apologized. “I’ve been out of touch. Just how bad is it, Glenn?”

“Laura,” he said, referring to his wife. “She’s dead, Christy. And I’m about to be charged with her murder. That’s how bad it is.”

Beneath her shock, Christy felt a rush of affectionate sympathy for him. But it was one of those “What can I say? What do I say?” moments. The waiter helped her. He arrived to serve their coffee, giving her a few seconds to marshal her thoughts.

By the time he retreated, she’d found her tongue.

“Glenn, I’m so sorry. How awful for you. Your little girl—”

“Yes, this is going to be very hard on Daisy. She knows her mother is gone, but she’s too young for the loss to really mean anything yet.”

Christy faced a tough question, but it had to be asked.

“Glenn, did you—” She couldn’t bring herself to say it, but she didn’t have to. He understood.

“No, I didn’t kill her, Christy. And the cops haven’t accused me of her murder. Yet.”

“But they suspect you of being involved, huh?”

“Oh, yeah, I know they do. I could feel it and my lawyer, who was with me when they asked all their questions, agrees that I may be this far from being arrested.” He held up thumb and forefinger a scant inch apart. “That’s where we were before I called you, with the police.”

“What makes you their chief suspect?”

“I guess it’s no secret our marriage was in trouble, that we’d been fighting a lot lately, mostly about money. And also—” He hesitated, reluctant to impart the rest.

“I have to know everything, Glenn.”

“Yes. Well, Laura’s best friend talked to the police. She told them she’d been worried about Laura, that she’d been acting frightened about something. When she’d asked her about it, Laura said it was me, that she was scared of me, and another friend backed up this story. Which is crazy. You know me, Christy. You know I’d never threaten anyone, least of all hurt them. But the police—”

“No, it doesn’t look so good, does it? But come on, Glenn—”

He cut her off with a swift, “I know what you’re going to say, that the cops are thorough, that they’ll look at every angle before they bring a charge. But how can I trust them to do that if they’re already convinced they have Laura’s killer, that all they have to do now is collect enough evidence against me?”

“Meaning,” she said slowly, “you want me to try to prove your innocence.”

“Yes. Will you?”

She appreciated his faith in her. But a case like this, aside from the obvious problems, presented another slight difficulty. The police did not appreciate P.I.s investigating their crimes. She’d have to be careful about that.

Have to? Whoa, when had she said yes? She hadn’t. But no didn’t look like much of an option, not with those lost gray eyes pleading with her across the table. Not with the memory of her mother telling her that her earnings this past quarter totaled to a nice round zero.

“All right, you’d better tell me the rest.”

He did and within ten minutes Christy had the essentials. How Laura, not for the first time, hadn’t come home last night. How her body, skull split open, had been found early this morning in the old Claiborne cemetery out along the river road.

No, Glenn didn’t know why Laura had this interest in what had once been her family’s plantation, a property now reduced to a house in ruins on a worthless scrap of wilderness. But she’d been haunting the place lately. That’s why he’d driven out there late yesterday afternoon, expecting to find her. He hadn’t, but two witnesses reported seeing him speeding away from the scene in a state of agitation. Why wouldn’t he be agitated, when his marriage had become as rotten as that crumbling house?

That was a particularly interesting portion of his story for Christy. On a personal level, anyway. Glenn was a teacher. That’s how Christy had met him. She’d been attending the University of New Orleans, training for a career in education. Her semester of student teaching had been spent in his classroom where she had learned, after coping with a herd of fiendish sixth graders, that education was definitely not in her future but that Glenn Hollister could be. Maybe. Hopefully.

But before their relationship had a chance to develop into something permanent, Laura Claiborne had come back into Glenn’s life. The Laura who had walked out on their affair several weeks earlier, but had now decided that Glenn was the man for her. And how could Glenn resist a woman so lovely, so enticing and so very pregnant with his baby?

End of episode. And, as it turned out a moment later, end of their meeting at the Café du Monde. There was a lot more information Christy needed from Glenn, but before he could supply it, his cell phone rang.

After speaking briefly to the caller, he pushed back from the table. “Sorry, Christy, but I have to leave. That was Monica’s housekeeper.” Monica being Laura’s sister, Christy remembered. “Monica is expecting me to join her. There are arrangements we have to make.”

The funeral, Christy guessed. She and Glenn agreed to meet again in the morning, then he paid the check and left.

Now what? But the answer should have been obvious to Christy, and it was. She finally had a job—thank God she had a job!—and since there were still several balmy hours of daylight left, why not begin performing it? She knew by then where she wanted to go and what she wanted to see.

Coming purposefully to her feet, she turned her back on the table and hurried away. Neither of them had touched their coffees.

THIRTY MINUTES LATER, having collected her vintage Ford Escort from where she kept it parked in an alley behind her office, Christy had crossed the Mississippi to the west bank and headed up the river road.

She knew how to get to where she was going. Some memories had a way of sticking with you, especially the painful ones. Wallowing in her misery after Glenn had parted from her five years ago, she had driven out to the Claiborne plantation. Why? Who knew. Maybe because she had expected to discover in its antebellum splendor, some satisfactory explanation for why Glenn had been so dazzled by Laura Claiborne. All she had found was a lost glory.

And how about today? What did she hope to learn by visiting the scene of Laura’s murder? Probably nothing that the police hadn’t already found and claimed. But you never knew what might turn up. It was a beginning, anyway.

Five years hadn’t helped the property, other than to leave no doubt it had deteriorated beyond all hope of rescue. Christy saw that as she turned off the river road below the levee and bumped along the rutted lane. The Claibornes had abandoned the plantation in the hard times after the Civil War, selling off pieces of the land in the decades that followed. Now all that remained in the weed-choked wilderness were the family cemetery and the crumbling house surrounded by an industrial farm with its ugly storage tanks. So much for the romance of the Old South.

The grove of live oaks shading the place, and where she parked her car, was still magnificent, however. She admired its canopies of new green as she made her way to the cemetery. Better start there, she thought, even though she wasn’t fond of cemeteries.

Yellow police tape marking the crime scene had been stretched along the wrought iron fence that enclosed the plot. The tape belonged to the New Orleans homicide division. Glenn had told her, because of its considerable facilities, it had been requested by the tiny local force to handle the case. Ignoring the tape’s existence, Christy entered the cemetery and wandered among the whitewashed tombs of Claiborne ancestors. Her gaze combed the ground, as if she expected to spy a startling clue overlooked by the police. There wasn’t one, unless you counted a couple of chicken feathers blown up against the iron fence. She didn’t.

There probably hadn’t been much for the police to collect either. She remembered it had rained heavily the night Laura’s body had lain here and that would have obliterated evidence. Her gaze drifted toward the house. She considered the place.

Funny thing about gut-level instincts; when they were reliable, they could be so useful. Christy had those instincts, the kind that served a P.I. very well. Trouble was, they needed to be accompanied by the skills that only came from experience. That, unfortunately, she lacked, which meant her instincts weren’t always dependable. At the moment, however, they were urging her to investigate the house. It was just possible it might produce something other than its ghosts.

Obeying her instincts, Christy turned her steps in the direction of the mansion. It really was a pathetic sight. The soaring brick columns that embraced the house on all sides were being eaten away by time and weather. Why had Laura repeatedly been drawn here?

The front door was gone. Boards had been nailed across the gap, but the widest of them had dropped, leaving a yawning hole. Christy didn’t hesitate. Popping through the opening, she was inside the house. Or what was left of it.

Resurrection. That’s what the plantation was called, named after the resurrection fern so common in southern Louisiana. But as Christy passed from room to room, she knew that this house would never be resurrected. It was a gray shell, stripped of everything but the dust bunnies.

Gone were the marble fireplaces, the paneling and carved moldings, the chandeliers, the floor tiles and silver locks. Vandals? If so, they had made off with what must have been some pretty valuable treasures.

Even the staircase was missing and if the outline of it in the peeling plaster on the wall was any indication, it had been a grand affair. But at the back of the house she located a plain service stairway that was still intact. Hey, why not check it all out? Which is why Christy found herself climbing the flight to the second floor where things got a bit more interesting. Or uncomfortable, depending on your point of view.

From behind a door that stood slightly ajar came a rustling sound. Spooks? Mice? Or maybe she was just imagining the noise. Either way, she took the precaution of removing the Glock from her shoulder bag. Of course, getting out of here fast would probably have been the smarter thing to do, but if you were a private investigator…well, you were supposed to investigate.

Semiautomatic firmly in hand, she spread the door wide. Behind it was another narrow flight of stairs leading to the attic. Saying a little prayer, she crept up the stairway, emerging at the top in the hollow vastness of the attic.

She could have sworn those instincts had been trying to tell her something. But, of course, they couldn’t have been because there was nothing to find. No spooks. No wild-eyed lunatic leaping out at her. Not even a scurrying mouse. And she could tell because there was plenty of light. There was a reason for that. The neglected roof had opened up in one corner.

Nor had the damage stopped there, as she discovered when she went to look. The invasive rain had rotted the floorboards under the gaping roof both here and on the floor below, collapsing ceilings and leaving a cavity that dropped from the attic all the way to the first floor. A meteorite couldn’t have fashioned a more perfect shaft.

There was an object above the deep well hanging from a rusted nail on one of the remaining roof rafters. It looked like a small bunch of dried plant material. Herbs of some kind? Leaning forward, Christy reached for it. That’s when the rustling she had heard earlier revealed itself without warning in an explosion of sound and motion.

Suddenly, alarmingly, she came under attack. They swooped down at her, beat at her neck and shoulders, flew at her face. It was like a scene out of that old Hitchcock thriller, The Birds. Except these critters, a colony of swallows nesting up in the shadowy rafters behind her, meant her no harm. They were merely frightened and in a hurry to escape.

Intentional or not, however, by the time the last of them had streamed away through the opening in the roof, they had cost Christy her Glock and her shoulder bag. Her balance as well. She lost that just as her fingers snagged the dried plants, which immediately crumbled to flakes.

The next thing she knew, she was down in the hole itself where the flakes had drifted, hanging by her hands from an exposed pipe once buried under the missing floor. It must have been a gas line that had supplied a chandelier suspended from a second-floor ceiling, though explanations hardly mattered when her precarious handhold was the only thing keeping her from a broken neck.

It was a damn silly situation to get caught in, not to mention absolutely terrifying. The pipe seemed solid enough. Problem was, as hard as she tried, grunting, straining, swinging, she couldn’t manage to pull herself up out of that shaft.

This was serious. Her arms were aching by now, her fingers numb. How much longer could she cling to this pipe before her hands began to slip, before she plunged—How far was it? She made the mistake of glancing down and was immediately so giddy that she closed her eyes. That’s why she didn’t see the long arm that reached down from over her head, didn’t know it was there until a strong hand clamped around her wrist.

Eyes flying open, she issued a little yelp of surprise. The hand tugged, urging her to release her grip on the pipe. No choice but to trust him. She did and was hauled up with such force that when her feet touched firm floor again, they failed to support her.

She staggered, slamming against a hard wall which turned out to be a broad-shouldered body. The body had a pair of arms that caught and steadied her in a comforting embrace. At least it was comforting until, dragging her head back, she looked up and discovered that the pair of lady-killer eyes colliding with hers belonged to the Prince of Darkness.

“You have got to stop falling for me like this,” he said.

Chapter Two

It was disgusting that, like half the female population in New Orleans, she should suddenly find herself susceptible to this man. Of course, there was a very good explanation. This was only a momentary reaction because she’d been so shaken by her predicament. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be experiencing all these treacherous sensations. This dizzy breathlessness as the pair of brash green eyes, that didn’t miss a thing, continued to hold her gaze. This sudden heat in her insides as she stared up at the bold face under its thatch of dark hair. And this weakness in her limbs as the powerful arms continued to pin her against his chest.

Okay, so the guy had a blatant sex appeal in a lean body that scraped six feet and moved with a sensual, confident gait. She’d give him that, whatever her earlier denials.

But Dallas McFarland? Come on, he was her rival, her sworn enemy. And nature was playing a mean trick on her, that’s all, one Christy planned to correct just as soon as she recovered her wind.

“Because,” he continued in a deliberately seductive voice, “if you go around dropping into holes just to get my attention, things are bound to happen. Really dangerous things.” And up came that grin again on his wide mouth, the sinful, mocking one.

“I suppose,” she said, finding air at last, “there’s an explanation for why you’re not on a boat with Brenda Bornowski. Why you happen to be—Hey, let me go.”

“That any way to express your appreciation to the man who just saved your shapely little fanny from getting flattened?”

“I’m forever grateful,” she said sarcastically, and then amended it with a grudging, “Okay, I am grateful. Now let me go.”

He released her and Christy moved back out of his reach. Better. Or it would be if those green eyes would stop trying to get intimate with her. “So what did you do with Brenda?”

“Turned her over to one of my operatives when the boat made its first stop. Routine stuff at that point,” he boasted. “She did meet the punk onboard, by the way. I imagine Daddy will be subjecting her to a harsh punishment when he gets my report. Probably deprive her of her credit cards for at least a month.”

He sounded so smug about it, so carelessly confident that Christy wanted to smack him. She had gone and busted her backside, that same backside he had just so familiarly referred to, to win the Bornowski case, and he’d reached out with ease and plucked it from her grasp. It was an outcome that still rankled.

McFarland had a pair of black eyebrows, thick ones that seemed to express his moods. Right now they were lifted in amusement. “Yeah, I know,” he said, reading her thoughts, “you’re wondering how I managed to catch up with little Brenda when you thought you’d left me in the dust back on Canal. It’s called being resourceful—like slipping a couple of twenties to the subject’s best friend beforehand to let you know by cell phone where she’s planning to wind up. Hey, don’t scowl at me like that. All’s fair in love and private investigation.”

“Which still doesn’t explain what you’re doing out here.”

“Oh, didn’t I say?” He leaned negligently against one of the attic’s supporting posts. “See, my operative wasn’t alone. He’d brought Monica Claiborne with him to the landing. She wanted to speak with me before she went on to meet her brother-in-law.”

Oh, no, Christy thought with a sinking heart, knowing what was coming.

“Seems Monica isn’t satisfied with what the cops are doing to find her sister’s killer. And since, unlike her brother-in-law, she can afford to hire the best—that’s me and my agency—she asked me to look into it.”

It was worse than Christy imagined, because Monica must have told McFarland that Glenn meant to hire her for the same purpose.

He smiled that odious smile again. “News travels fast, huh? Hey, take it easy. Way you’re reeling, you’ll be sliding into that hole again.”

Christy couldn’t stand it. She positively could not stand it. This case was vital to her, probably her last chance to survive as a P.I. in her own right, and now here was Dallas McFarland again threatening to mess it up for her. Well, not if she could help it.

Recovering her gun and her bag from the floor, clutching them against her breasts, she fired off a livid, “I can’t stop you from working for Monica Claiborne, but you keep away from me and my client or I’ll report you to the licensing board for unethical practices! I swear I will!”

“Uh, actually, I was sort of thinking—”

“Don’t!”

Pushing past him, she fled down the two flights of stairs to the ground floor. McFarland was right behind her, as persistent as a dog barking up a tree. And equally annoying.

“I don’t know what you’re so mad about. If I hadn’t come out here, just like you did, to take a look at the scene of Laura Hollister’s death, where would you be? Still hanging from that gas pipe, right?”

Christy rushed on, not answering him.

“It’s the truth, isn’t it? So the least you could do—” He followed her through the gap in the boards and out into the yard. “—the least you could do is listen to me.”

Ignoring him, she headed for her car under the oaks. He was still nipping at her heels.

“Look, grits, slow down long enough to hear me—”

This time she stopped, rounding on him so swiftly he almost collided with her. “What did you just call me?”

He backed up a safe distance away from her, his hands raised in mock innocence. “Hey, it’s a compliment. Grits is one of my favorite foods. Really.”

“Is it? Well, that’s one Southern dish I can do without.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing. With a little honey on top, it’s downright irresistible.” There went those eyebrows again, registering something far too suggestive.

“I’ll bet.”

Swinging away from him, she went on to her car. It was no longer alone under the oaks. McFarland’s car was parked beside it. And wouldn’t you know it would be a sleek, cream-colored convertible just reeking of success, making her own old red Escort look all the more inadequate by comparison.

Well, so what? It was dependable enough to take her out of here and away from McFarland, providing she could find the keys. Naturally, she couldn’t. She had to stand there digging through all the junk in her bag while McFarland caught up with her. Trapped. Forced to listen to him as he leaned his rangy, tempting frame against the side of her car.

“Got a proposition for you, grits. Oh, you’re gonna love it.”

He spoke in a lazy, deep-voiced drawl, the country-boy variety. She suspected it wasn’t altogether genuine and wondered how many women had been dumb enough to fall for it.

“What I was thinking,” he went on, “is that you and I could work together on this case.”

Now that took her attention away from her frantic search for the car keys. Boy, did it ever! She lifted her head and stared at him, not believing what she was hearing. Somebody here had just lost his mind, and she didn’t think it was her.

“I can see by the way that sweet little nose of yours is twitching that you’re just a tad upset by the notion. But think about it. Even if we do have separate clients, we’re after the same thing, aren’t we? The truth behind Laura Hollister’s murder. So why not join forces and share our efforts? Make sense?”

“About as much sense as a cottonmouth getting cozy with a bunny rabbit.” As she went on staring at him, Christy realized there was something intense behind this casual offer of his. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Well, sure.”

“It’s never going to happen, McFarland. And why would an exalted P.I. like you, want it to happen when you know how I feel about you? Which, in case you’ve been wondering, isn’t good. Besides—and correct me if I’m wrong—your opinion of me and my agency is—” She broke off with another sudden realization. “Oh, I get it. I’m a direct pipeline to the chief suspect. You want easy access to any privileged information my client might share with me. And that’s about as underhanded as slipping a pair of twenties to Brenda Bornowski’s best friend.”

“Why, when I’d be sharing anything Monica Claiborne knows with you?”

“I’ll collect my own information, thank you. And move aside so I can get out of here.” She had found her car keys, and now all she wanted was to put Dallas McFarland behind her. Far behind her.

“Sure you won’t reconsider?” He stepped away from the Escort. “It would be an opportunity for you to work with an experienced P.I. Just think of how much you could learn.”

There was one thing she had to say about this man, Christy thought, opening her car door and sliding in behind the wheel. He didn’t lack ego or tenacity. As she fumbled with her seat belt, he poked his head through the open window of the driver’s door.

“Okay, so you’re going to solve this murder all on your own. But did you ever stop to think, grits, that the cops might be right and that Glenn Hollister did kill his wife?”

She turned the key in the ignition, started the car, and resisted the temptation to raise the window with his head in it. “Glenn is a decent, caring man, incapable of murder, and I’m going to prove that!”

“We’re sensitive about ol’ Glenn, are we? Interesting.”

Christy angrily tugged at the brim of her baseball cap and shoved the gear stick into Drive. Dallas McFarland leapt back from the window just in time to save himself from being decapitated as she sped away from the oak grove.

On the first half of the drive back to New Orleans, Christy fumed. On the second half she cooled down and thought about McFarland’s reasons for wanting to work with her. And by the time she reached the city, she decided there was something wrong with those reasons. They weren’t good enough. So what was he really after?

When she got back to the office and told Denise all about it, the woman agreed that McFarland’s proposal didn’t make sense. “Yeah, what’s a hotshot P.I. like him need with you?”

“Thank you, Denise.”

“Well, sure is funny.”

On the other hand, Christy decided, they were probably assigning dark motives where none existed. And what did it matter, anyway, since she wouldn’t be working with McFarland? No sir, she worked alone and starting tomorrow she was going to be much too busy helping Glenn to worry about anyone else.

However, at this moment, it was a little hard to concentrate on Glenn and her feelings for him with the memory of Dallas McFarland’s hot eyes haunting her. And that was another thing. How could green eyes be hot? She didn’t know, but his were.

THE OFFICE SUITE of the McFarland Detective Agency was located in a high-rise overlooking the Mississippi. Dallas’s private office, as classy as his cream-colored convertible, had floor-to-ceiling windows that commanded a sweeping view of the New Orleans harbor, one of the busiest in the country with its barges, tugs and freighters.

At this moment, with a flaming sunset gilding the river and its traffic, the scene was particularly impressive. Dallas paid no attention to it. Tilted back in his comfortable chair, he occupied himself with something far more absorbing. His yo-yo.

Dallas was very good with the instrument, able to execute intricate loops that had been the envy of every kid on his block. Hell, he could make the thing actually sing when he tried. Right now, though, he was simply sending it out and back at a horizontal angle, an activity that permitted him to think. Unfortunately, whenever his frustration was considerable and he shot the yo-yo too far, it left marks in the designer wall covering.

That covering was taking a real beating this evening. The subject of his thoughts was Christy Hawke. Or, to be more accurate, how Christy Hawke had felt when she’d been plastered against him up there in that attic this afternoon.

Good. That’s how she’d felt. Damn good, with those luscious little breasts of hers squeezed against his chest, that honey-blond hair all fragrant under his nose. The crazy thing was, he’d never thought of her before as anything but a small nuisance in a baseball cap and running shoes. Never found her remotely alluring. But up there in that attic, he’d just about lost all self-control.

So how smart was it that he wanted to hook up with her, place himself in a situation where he would be close to her on a daily basis? Not smart at all. He didn’t need that kind of distraction.

The yo-yo in his hand flew out and back, out and back.

On the other hand, he did need what she was in a position to offer him. Needed it badly. Yeah, no choice about it. So all right, he would just have to resist temptation while he worked with her. He could do that. He could also live with the guilt of what amounted to using her. Couldn’t he? Hell, he had to. There was no way he could reveal this secret that was eating him up inside.

The yo-yo bounced off the wall. He refused to see that as a sign of any dangerous emotion. But, just as a precaution, he rewound it and laid it aside.

Of course, she had no intention of working with him. None whatever. But Dallas had the solution to that. Not that it was something he wanted to do. She’d call him conniving, blow that baseball cap right off the top of her head. No choice about it.

Swinging around in his chair, he reached for the telephone on his desk.

CHRISTY WAS grabbing a quick breakfast in her apartment the next morning when Denise hollered to her from the office below.

“Girlfriend, you up there?”

Bowl of corn flakes in hand, she went to the top of the stairs. “I’m here. What is it?”

Denise stood at the bottom of the flight, hands planted on her ample hips. “You got you a surprise waiting down here. Want me to send it on up, or are you comin’ down?”

“A delivery?”

“Uh, sorta.”

“I’ll be right down.”

What now? she wondered, not certain that she cared for the ambiguous tone in Denise’s voice. Spooning up the last mouthful of corn flakes, she dumped the bowl in the sink, snatched up her bag and flew down the stairs. As it turned out, straight into the outstretched arms of Denise’s surprise.

“Pop!”

Christy was the only member of her family who shared her father’s diminutive height. But what Casey Hawke lacked in size, he made up for in strength. She was reminded of that when he folded her in a hug that crushed her shoulder bag into her ribs.

When she was finally released, he demanded, “How are you, baby?” And before she could answer him, he turned to Denise. “How is she, Denise?”

“Got herself a case.”

“Yeah, I heard about that.”

How had he heard? What was he doing here? “Pop, what are you doing here?”

“On my way to help Roark with a client,” he said, referring to one of Christy’s brothers. “Didn’t your mother mention that when you called?”

Had she? Christy didn’t think so, but she kind of remembered Moura starting to tell her something about her father when she had to hang up on her. “Pop, this isn’t San Antonio.”

“Right, but I couldn’t get a direct flight.”

#8220;So you’re just here between planes?”

“That’s all.”

“Uh-oh,” Denise mumbled ominously.

Christy didn’t think she trusted her father’s explanation either. “Have you had breakfast?”

“On the flight down. I could stand to stretch my legs though, before I grab a cab back to the airport.”

He wanted to talk. He could have done that over the phone. This was beginning to sound more serious by the moment. “Let’s go, Pop.”

They left the office and crossed the courtyard, passing in the carriageway the side window of St. Leger’s Antiques. Her friend, Alistair St. Leger, was arranging a display of snuff boxes and waved to her. Out on the street, carriages conducted tourists through the Quarter, and around Jackson Square, where Christy and her father ended up strolling, street artists set up their wares for the day. It was Christy’s adopted city and she loved it all, even its seedier aspects, but her father’s presence had her fearing she might be forced to say goodbye to it.

“All right, Pop, let’s have it.”

He wasn’t gentle with her about it. Where business was concerned, he never was. “Your lease on the office comes up for renewal in ten days. We’re not going to pick it up, Christy. The agency can’t afford to carry you anymore.”

She stopped and turned her head to look at him. He had dark hair, liberally streaked with gray and a pair of blue eyes that at the moment were uncompromising. Beloved daughter or not, he was shutting her down. He was the senior member of the Hawke Detective Agency, who got tough whenever it was necessary. It was how Hawke’s had been able to survive and prosper all these years.

Christy understood that even while she hated it.

“I’m sorry, baby. Maybe you just weren’t meant to be a P.I. Anyway, it isn’t as though you don’t have a career waiting for you.”

Teaching. He meant she could come back home and go into the classroom. Never. Not without a fight. “Pop, I have a case. Let me solve it. Let me prove to you that I am a good P.I.”

She started to tell him about it, but he held up his hand. “I know all about Glenn Hollister and what you’re trying to do for him. I heard it last night.”

Christy had another bad feeling. Very bad. “How? Who?”

“Our competitor, Dallas McFarland, phoned me.”

“Why, that sneaky, low-down excuse for a—”

“Calm down, baby, and hear me out. McFarland had a proposition. Yes, I know. He already offered it to you and you turned it down. Well, I don’t share your biases about the man. I listened to it and in the end, your mother and I decided it made good sense. McFarland is a seasoned investigator and it’s going to take that kind of successful track record to save Glenn Hollister.”

“Oh, Pop,” she pleaded, “don’t say it. Please don’t say it.”

But he did. “Look, your mother and I agree that you have the kind of talent necessary to be a P.I. What you don’t have is the know-how that comes either from experience or learning, and since you weren’t willing to leave New Orleans to come home to us for that training—Anyway, here’s the deal. You join forces with McFarland, who’ll be kind of a mentor to you on this case and if before the ten days are up, the two of you, working together, have cracked the thing…well, then maybe Hawke’s will be interested, after all, in picking up that lease for you.”

“But that’s blackmail!” Dallas McFarland’s rotten blackmail. And why, why was he going to these extreme lengths to get her?

“Yes, baby, it kind of is. But you need a success and McFarland has what it takes to help you get it. Besides…”

A sly smile had appeared at the corners of her father’s mouth. “What?” she demanded.

“You might get close enough to learn just how he’s managed to steal all those clients from us.”

Yes, she thought, there was that.

“What do you say, baby?”

Christy drew a slow, deep breath meant to steady herself. But with that breath came all the tantalizing aromas of New Orleans—the tang of the nearby river, the perfume of its flowers, the old, mossy smells of its damp earth, the odors of its famous cooking. They were all blended together on the warm, lazy air, and they made her ache inside, as did the sight of St. Louis Cathedral rising so majestically from the edge of the square where they stood. She couldn’t bear to surrender them.

“All right, Pop, I accept your ultimatum. It stinks, but I accept it.”

The crinkles deepened at the corners of Casey’s eyes. “Don’t think of it as an ultimatum, baby. Think of it as a challenge.”

After putting her father in a cab, she went back to her office. “Call McFarland,” she instructed Denise. “Tell him I’ll meet him on the street outside the Claiborne and Hollister houses. He can talk to Monica while I interview Glenn. One hour and if he isn’t there the deal is off.”

Denise had one of her all-knowing looks.

“Don’t say it,” Christy warned her. “Not one word.”

Denise didn’t, but it didn’t help. The idea of Dallas McFarland as her salvation was infuriating.

THE TWO HOMES were situated side by side in the heart of the Garden District. Built by some eccentric Claiborne ancestor after the family had recovered its fortunes, they were something of a curiosity. Not just because they were identical, which they were, in nearly every respect, but because of their architecture. They were in the style known as Steamboat Gothic.

And you didn’t have to wonder what that meant, Christy thought. Their galleries, embellished with elaborate scroll-work, were more like the decks of floating palaces than porches, while the cupolas crowning their roofs resembled wheelhouses.

Christy never passed them without slowing down for a look, partly because she’d known that Glenn and his wife occupied one of the houses, and that Laura’s sister lived in the other. This morning, however, her attention was directed elsewhere.

He was already there, his cream-colored convertible parked at the curb in the shade of a glossy-leafed magnolia. If he was conscious of her arrival when she pulled up behind his vehicle, he was much too occupied to be interested in it. He’d left his car and was standing at the low wrought iron fence that framed both properties. There was an odd intensity in his manner, in the way he was so completely absorbed with the Hollister house, his eyes searching the windows.

What was he looking for? Christy wondered. What did he expect to see? And what was she doing sitting here at the wheel of her Escort watching him?

But the answer to that one was obvious, much as she hated to acknowledge it. She was admiring him, that’s what she was blatantly doing. And, worse luck, there was a lot to admire.

McFarland’s long, lean figure was clad in a trim, light gray business suit that accentuated the breadth of his shoulders. And wouldn’t you know, she’d be dressed in her regulation knee-length shorts and baseball cap. Oh, they were going to make quite a team all right, a real contrast in styles.

As a concession to the warmth of the morning, however, he did have the jacket off and slung over one shoulder, the knot of his tie loosened, the sleeves of his deep blue shirt turned back over a pair of strongly corded forearms. Unfortunately, the effect wasn’t as casual as it was downright sexy. Drat. Working with this guy was going to be even harder than she’d figured.

Tugging grimly at the brim of her cap, Christy left her car and joined him at the fence. He turned his head, favoring her with one of his cocky grins.

“So, grits, what’s your take on your new partner?”

So he had been aware that she was checking him out. Great. “We are not partners,” she informed him brusquely. “Not even remotely are we partners. This is a temporary arrangement, McFarland, and when it’s ended—which can’t be soon enough for me—we go our separate ways.”

“Right. Anything else?”

“Oh, yeah. Rules.”

One of those dark, aggressive eyebrows lifted. “Rules?”

“Rules. And either you agree to them, or I walk.”

“Listening.”

Christy used the spikes on the top of the iron fence to count them off. “First, we split down the middle all fees and expenses. I don’t care what Monica Claiborne is paying you, it gets equally divided between us. Second, we share all information. No holding back and if I find out you have any hidden agendas—”

“Such as?”

“Just don’t have them.” She jabbed at the next spike. “Third, and this is very important, we stick to business. All business. No more touchy-feely stuff like up in that attic.”

“Ow, that’s a sharp one, grits. Painful.”

He didn’t know how painful. Those lethal green eyes of his were reminding her, all over again, of that brief, breathless intimacy they’d shared. Made it tough to concentrate on delivering her rules.

“And that’s another thing. I want you to stop calling me grits.”

“Well, now, see, that one might be a little difficult. It’s kind of gotten inside my head.”

“Then get it out.”

“Does it qualify as a spike?” Her expression must have warned him that her aggravation was at a dangerous level, because he added a hasty, “I’ll try. Is that all?”

“For now.”

“Then shall we go to work?”

She watched him roll down his sleeves, button them, tighten his tie, slip into his jacket. And she wondered why she should be so annoyed that he was making himself gorgeous for Monica Claiborne?

THEY MET AGAIN by their parked cars to share the information they had gathered in their separate interviews.

“This could take a while,” Dallas said. “We might as well sit while we talk. Your car or mine?”

Christy wasn’t certain that she cared to get comfortable with him in either car. She preferred a neutral ground for their exchange. Where? The clang of an approaching trolley on nearby St. Charles Avenue provided the answer.

“How do you feel about streetcars?”

“Streetcars are good.”

“Then let’s ride one.”

They reached the corner in time to board the old, olive-green car that served one of the last lines of its kind. Paying their fares, they squeezed into a slatted seat.

Dallas barely gave her a chance to get settled before he wanted to know, “And how is ol’ Glenn holding up?”

The sarcasm in his tone whenever he referred to Glenn irritated her. He obviously considered him capable of his wife’s murder, which was not exactly the best way to represent your client. All right, so strictly speaking Glenn was her client, but still…

“He’s just dandy. Or would be, if he didn’t have a murder charge staring him in the face.”

“There’s a little girl, isn’t there? She okay?”

“I didn’t see Daisy, but I imagine someone is taking good care of her.”

Dallas fell silent as the trolley rumbled on through the Garden District with its classic mansions. His face was impassive and she wondered what he was thinking. Before she could ask, he had another question for her.

“And Hollister has no idea who might have wanted his wife dead?”

“Not a clue.”

“What about Laura’s car? It must have been parked somewhere near the old plantation house. If Glenn followed her out to Resurrection, why didn’t he see it, know that she must still be there? Did you ask him about that?”

“Of course I asked him. He said it was there, that the police had found it parked out of sight behind this tangle of shrubbery. But since Glenn had no reason to suppose she might have hidden it or to check out the cemetery either, he assumed she wasn’t there, after all, and he left.”

“In an agitated state. Why, if he never saw her?”

“He was upset about their marriage,” Christy explained. “He’d been upset for some time. He’d counted on having it out with her about their problems and was angry that she wasn’t available.”

“Seems a funny thing to do, going out there like that on the chance she’d be there. Why not wait until she got home to talk to her about it?”

“It was one of those spur of the moment things. An I’ve-had-it-and-I’m-going-to-settle-it-right-now emotion. We’ve all had them.”

“Yeah, but a couple of hikers didn’t see us tearing away from the scene and a teenager out hunting rabbits the next morning didn’t find our wife with her head bashed in.” Aware of Christy glaring at him, Dallas offered a quick, “Hey, I’m just playing devil’s advocate here, trying to look at all the angles. I’m not condemning the guy. I know that his marriage was in trouble. Monica told me that.”

“I hope she also told you that her sister had gotten very strange these past few months. Glenn said Laura had become withdrawn and wouldn’t talk about it. Something was going on with her and I’m thinking it could have been another man, that she was meeting him at Resurrection, which would explain why she was out there so much and didn’t come home some nights.”

“That would be a handy solution. Laura cheating on ol’ Glenn and her secret lover doing her in.” Dallas shook his head. “Except it doesn’t work. And not because Laura Hollister wasn’t the type to have an affair. She just wouldn’t have been troubled about it.”

“How do you know what type she was? Oh, Monica, I suppose. And would you please stop crowding me?”

Christy had grown increasingly aware of his disarming closeness. He was pressed so tightly against her that she could feel the heat of his solid body, smell the scent of his soap. His nearness was making her slightly woozy.

“Can’t help it. In case you haven’t noticed, these seats aren’t exactly generous.”

“Do you have to have your arm there?” It was draped along the back of the seat, not exactly around her but close enough to be threateningly cozy. She was beginning to realize the trolley hadn’t been a safe choice.

“Nowhere else to put it,” he said with an innocence she was learning not to trust. “And it’s not about sex. It’s about money.”

“Huh?”

He chuckled. “Pay attention. The Hollister marriage. Money was the problem there. Laura liked to spend it, particularly on jewelry, and her husband earned a teacher’s salary. Monica said they argued about that all the time.”

“But there should have been plenty. Glenn told me that, though Monica controlled the sisters’ inheritance, she doled out a generous monthly allowance to Laura.”

“Not enough to suit Laura. Monica said her sister asked to have that allowance increased and was furious when she turned her down.”

Dallas fell silent again. There was a faraway look on his face that Christy wondered about. Why did she have the persistent feeling he had some personal stake in this case, something he was unwilling to reveal to her?

“Hello,” she prompted him.

“Sorry. You were saying?”

“Actually, I was hoping you would be saying it. You spent as much time with Monica as I spent with Glenn, but nearly everything we’ve got so far has come from Glenn. Didn’t you get anything useful from her that could provide us with a strong lead?”

“Well, now that’s interesting,” he said with an exasperating casualness, “because it’s just possible I did.”

“Do I get to hear it?” she asked him impatiently.

“Would I hold out on a partner?”

Yes, if it suited you, Christy thought, but she didn’t say it.

“It seems,” Dallas went on with that same nonchalance, “that the police investigators went and turned up something curious in this little clearing behind the family cemetery where Laura’s body was found. They questioned Monica about it. Wanted to know if she knew anything about her property having been used as a setting for voodoo practices.”

“Voodoo! You mean the kind people don’t kid about? The sick stuff?”

“Could be.”

“And you’re just now mentioning this? What exactly did they find?”

“Evidence that there may have been midnight ceremonies, the sacrifice of small animals. Monica was shocked.”

Christy suddenly remembered the chicken feathers blown up against the iron fence enclosing the cemetery and how she had ignored them, which didn’t make her happy about her detecting skills.

There was something else she remembered—that small bunch of dried plant material she’d been reaching for in the attic when the swallows had startled her. She told Dallas about it.

“So that’s how you ended up down in that hole doing a trapeze act from a gas pipe. What happened to the stuff?”

“It crumbled to bits as I grabbed at it, and since by then I had, uh, a few other things to occupy me, I forgot about it. But it occurs to me now it could have been a voodoo charm. That means,” she said excitedly, “Laura might have been involved with some kind of cult. And that could explain why she went out so often to Resurrection and didn’t come home some nights. It could also explain her death.”

“It could,” Dallas agreed, “but since she died in the afternoon around the same time as her husband’s visit out there, the police aren’t ready to connect her murder with any late-night rituals.”

“But we have to be serious about that possibility,” Christy insisted.

“Right. Let’s go.”

He came abruptly to his feet, moving out into the aisle as the trolley slowed for one of its stops. Christy followed him as he headed for the exit.

“Where to?”

“Back to our cars.”

“And then?”

He didn’t reply. He was too busy making a path for them through a party of chattering tourists trying to board the trolley as they were leaving it. By the time she caught up with him, he had reached another trolley headed in the opposite direction.

“Lots of questions to be answered, grits,” he said as he hustled her aboard the car. “Yeah, I know. Don’t call you that. Look, don’t think of it as food. Think of it as all the courage I admire in you.”

Christy let that one pass. For now, anyway. “And just where are you taking us to get them answered?” she demanded again as she sank into one of the seats.

“Someplace that’s going to fascinate you,” he promised as he settled beside her. “Either that or scare you to death.”

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