LITMIR.BIZ

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floor, his sneakers squeaking on the well-worn marble, his heart was thumping a little harder than usual. He knew the rules and what he had in mind broke most of them.

      Maybe even having the name Lyon on his media credentials wouldn’t save his rear end if this got out.

      To hell with it.

      He made his way through the little maze of hallways to the judges’ offices. Room 201. A dark oak door, seven-feet high and imposing. Scott realized his fingers were cramping around his camera, he was gripping it that tightly.

      What was going on with him, that he was reacting this way, sabotaging his own work? Was this the first sign of burnout? Boredom? Just plain disgust? Or was it, after all, as simple as one man’s instinctive urge to come to the rescue of a woman he wanted to impress?

      He opened the door without knocking, slipped in and closed it behind him.

      Judge Nicolette Bechet didn’t even seem startled. From her desk, her keen blue eyes zeroed in on his camera and froze. “Leave. Now.”

      She was known for her clipped, no-frills style in court. She intimidated a lot of people that way. Scott wasn’t intimidated—he knew the technique. His Aunt Margaret used it well.

      “Look out your window.”

      She took a breath, her nostrils flaring almost imperceptibly. “You’ve overstepped your bounds, Mr. Lyon.”

      She knew his name. He doubted if his family connections bought him much with her.

      “I know. Now look out the window, Judge Bechet.”

      She remained rigid, her gaze unflinching. A distinctive cleft marked her pointed chin, adding an aura of strength to her face. Her hair was the color of honey, streaked by the sun and pulled back loosely from her narrow face.

      Nicolette Bechet wasn’t beautiful, but Scott hadn’t been able to get her off his mind since he’d videotaped her interview with Bailey. Despite her cool, she hadn’t been able to completely hide the haunted look in her wide blue eyes. It wasn’t just the look of a grieving daughter, he’d decided. It went deeper than that.

      The probing questions she’d refused to answer during the interview—or in the ten days since, when every reporter in New Orleans had quizzed her over and over—had confirmed Scott’s guess. Judge Bechet had unfinished business in her family. Old business.

      “I could very easily have you removed,” she said now with steely control. She spoke precisely, with no hint of her Cajun roots.

      “But who’ll remove them?” he asked.

      For the first time she seemed to see him as a human being and not merely a video camera on two legs. Her eyes met his, first challenging, then showing just a little uncertainty. Scott again registered the thud of his heartbeat and knew better than to attribute it solely to the fact that he was betraying his colleagues by warning Nicolette Bechet about the media attack awaiting her. No, it was more than that. The judge got under his skin.

      “Them?”

      He nodded at the window.

      She stood slowly. She still wore her robe, open over a dove-gray silk blouse buttoned securely to a little stand-up collar. Gray cuffs showed. Her skirt was black and as she moved from behind her desk in the direction of the window, he saw that it fell a very proper two inches below her knees. Her calves were shapely, even in her nononsense flat-heeled shoes. Trim ankles.

      But it was her eyes that made his mouth go dry.

      A startling shade of blue and completely unrelenting, they weren’t the windows to any soul he could see, except in those brief moments when she was caught unaware.

      She looked out the window, then stiffened. “I see.” She looked back at him. “And you’re here because...?”

      “I didn’t think you’d want to be ambushed.”

      She made a cynical smile. “And in return...”

      He didn’t blame her. He was a television-news cameraman, after all.

      “The back exit is clear,” he said. “You can make it to your car that way without running into trouble.”

      She studied him. Then very carefully she took off her robe, folded it and draped it over the back of her leather chair. She replaced it with a suit jacket, picked up a briefcase and started for the door. He stood to one side.

      “This doesn’t get you anything,” she said. “Not the inside scoop. Not an exclusive. Nothing.”

      Her upper lip was delicate and perfectly formed. Her lower lip was full and soft. She didn’t have the look of a woman who wasted time being kissed.

      “I don’t expect anything,” he said gruffly.

      She didn’t challenge his claim, but her eyes remained filled with skepticism.

      She marched down the hall. He wanted to follow her, but couldn’t justify doing so. She didn’t want his protection, and he had no business offering it.

      He returned to the pack of reporters and waited with them until someone got word that Judge Nicolette Bechet had given them all the slip. Scott tried not to smile as R. Bailey Ripken contributed to the rash of frustrated profanities that rippled through the throng of reporters. There would be no story tonight.

      The next day, however, was a different matter. At a late-afternoon press conference, it was announced that Judge Nicolette Bechet had resigned her post. She wasn’t available for questioning.

      Her apartment had been vacated.

      CHAPTER ONE

      Bayou Sans Fin, November 1999

      

      “SILENCE! Now!”

      The cranky cockatiel’s command merely added to the usual morning chaos around the breakfast table at Cachette en Bayou Farm.

      Tony and his cousin Toni were perfecting a riff in the song the two were writing for their zydeco band. Beau’s baby girl was demanding attention using the best technique known to six-montholds. Milo the mutt whined for a biscuit; Michel’s current live-in girlfriend whined about her hair. And twelve-year-old Jimmy was practicing his forward pass over everyone’s head, using the six unsuspecting cats as target.

      Nicki sighed.

      “Quiet!” That was Perdu the cockatiel again, more frantic this time. He made an impatient little skip on Maman Riva’s shoulder. The histrionics, Nicki knew, would serve no good purpose. The Bechet family was a freight train with no brakes.

      “We start electrical work this week,” Nicki announced quietly, spooning up a slice of pink grapefruit.

      “This one’s a bullet!” Jimmy shrieked. “Watch your noggins.”

      Jimmy had not been raised to throw footballs at the breakfast table. This Nicki knew. His side of the family was normal, sane, well behaved. But as soon as they reached Cachette en Bayou, some sort of insanity gene kicked in and they were off and running.

      Nicki swallowed the bite of grapefruit. “That means we’ll be without lights. Without refrigerator. Without hot water. Without air-conditioning.” Nobody took any notice of her. She thought wryly of her days on the bench. People had sat up and taken notice when Judge Nicolette Bechet spoke. Those days were gone forever. “It could go on for a week or more.”

      Still no reaction. Yet Nicki knew that each and every one of them would look at her after several hours without power and demand to know how she could have sprung this on them without warning.

      “This I cannot believe!” Maman Riva said, shaking her head and brushing Perdu’s beak with the fluff of snow-white curls peeking from beneath her purple paisley turban. “Months she is missing and not a word. Outrageous! Scandalous!”

      “Shut up!” Perdu demanded, his tone

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