LITMIR.BIZ

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the right side of his neck, and he flopped slowly sideways. Thunderous pulsing roared in his ears and he saw red, red everywhere. His blood pumped from the carotid artery in gushes. It hit the windshield and splattered over the lovely ivory leather interior of the car.

      Red and black. Bleeding to death. Life draining out.

      Louis opened his mouth but couldn’t speak.

      He slid until his head rested on the briefcase.

      “I’m only doing my job,” a distant voice said. “Brizio always does his job.”

      Louis convulsed. His mouth filled with blood. No pain at all now, just soft, gray numbness gathering him in.

      “Sleep tight. This is your dead end, sucker.”

      Chapter 2

      “Vivian Patin, I’m your mother. You have absolutely no right to speak to me in that manner.”

      Charlotte paused to peer down the passageway leading from the big, antiquated kitchens to the hall and the receiving room where their next-door neighbor, Mrs. Susan Hurst, waited for tea. After taking no notice of Charlotte and Vivian since they moved in months earlier, she had appeared on the doorstep today, just appeared without warning and invited herself for tea. Imagine that. With a plate of cookies in hand, she’d showed up to be “neighborly.”

      “Mama,” Vivian said in a low voice but without whispering. “I’m a little old to be treated like a child. Now tell me what you’ve been up to. No, no, don’t tell me you haven’t been up to anythin’ because I can tell. Guilt is painted all over your face.”

      Her mother’s pretty, fair-skinned face and innocent, liquid brown eyes couldn’t hide a thing from Vivian. Charlotte Patin feared nothing and would dare anything. Her close-cropped gray hair and petite frame added to the impression that she was a dynamo. In fact, she rarely stood still and she hatched a plan a minute. And Vivian adored her. She also knew that her mother was putting a great face on her grief. She and Vivian’s father had lived a love affair. Mama was brave, but David Patin had only been dead a year and Charlotte’s odd, empty expressions, which came and went without warning, made lumps in Vivian’s throat.

      “Mama, please,” Vivian said gently. “I know whatever you’ve done is with the best intentions. But—and I’m beggin’ now—put me out of my misery.”

      Charlotte hushed her and leaned out of the kitchen door once more.

      “Just tell me what you’re up to,” Vivian said. “I’m worried out of my mind about Louis Martin. Where can that man be? That should be all you care about, too, but you’re up to something else. You got off the phone real quick earlier.” Her mother in a stubborn mode was a hard woman to break down.

      “I’d better call Louis’s offices in New Orleans and see if he ever left,” Charlotte said, knowing she was going to be on thin ice with Vivian. “I don’t hear any hammerin’ or bangin’ in this house, do you? No? That’s because workers have to be paid and we’re about out of money.” A mother had to do what a mother had to do and right now this mother had to safeguard the little surprise she had planned for the evening.

      Vivian shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans. She decided they were better there than taking out her ire on some innocent dish—particularly since most of the dishes around here were actually worth something. “Don’t try to distract me with what I already know,” she said, raising her voice a little. “Tell me the straight truth.”

      “She’ll hear you,” Charlotte whispered. “She’s only here because she’s a nosy gossip who finally decided to come and poke around. That woman will run straight from our house to chatter about us to her cronies. She behaves like the lady of the manor visiting the poor on her estates. I can only imagine what she’ll say about us.”

      “If I shout at you, she’ll have a lot to say.”

      “Oh, all right, I give up. You have no respect. I called that nice Spike Devol and invited him to dinner this evenin’. A handsome man like that all on his own. Such a waste.”

      Vivian took a calming breath. “He has his daughter and his father,” she said while she turned to water just under her skin, all of her skin, at the mention of that man. “Anyway, I’m sure he didn’t accept. Why would he?”

      For a smart woman who, until months ago, had managed an exclusive hotel in New Orleans, Vivian, Charlotte thought, could be plain stupid. “Well, he did accept and he’ll be here around seven. He may be a deputy sheriff and we know the pay’s not so good, but I hear he does well with that gas station and convenience store his daddy runs for him, and now he’s got his crawfish boilin’ operation.”

      She watched for Vivian to react and when she didn’t, said, “He’s obviously not afraid to work and he’s had his hard times with his wife leaving him like that. For a body-builder. There isn’t a thing wrong with Spike’s body as far as I can see. Of course, I haven’t seen—” Vivian’s raised eyebrows brought Charlotte a little caution. “Well, anyway, he’s just about the best-looking single man in these parts, and quiet in that mysterious way some strong men are. I’m tellin’ you, Vivian—”

      “Nothing.” Vivian hardly dared to speak at all. “You are telling me nothing and from now on you won’t make one more matchmaking attempt. Y’hear? I can’t imagine where you got all your personal information about him.”

      “You like him, too. You have since you first met him. That had to be a couple of years back. I’ve seen how the two of you talk—”

      “Not a thing, Mama. You will not do or say another thing on the subject. Give me that tea.” With that, she snatched up the pot. “Bring the cups and saucers and help me get rid of this woman quickly.”

      “He had a disappointing thing with Jilly at the bakery in Toussaint—All Tarted Up,” Charlotte said from behind Vivian. “I guess everyone thought they were goin’ somewhere but it didn’t work out. They’re still good friends and I always think that says a lot about people.”

      “I know that,” Vivian said.

      “Father Cyrus and Spike are good friends so Spike must be a good man.”

      Vivian faced Charlotte, pressed a finger to her own lips and said a fierce, “Shh,” before hurrying on, crossing the hall with its towering gold relief plasterwork ceiling and walls hung with faded chartreuse Chinese silk. She entered the shabbily opulent receiving room. With a big grin, she said, “Here we are, Mrs. Hurst. If I say so myself, my mother and I make the best tea I ever tasted.” She grinned even more broadly. “But then, I only drink tea when we’re at home together.”

      Apparently Mrs. Hurst didn’t see any humor in what Vivian said. She looked back at her from a couch covered with threadbare gold tapestry and supported on elephant foot legs. Mrs. Hurst’s glistening pink lips hung slightly open and vague confusion hovered in her blue eyes. The woman could have been as young as forty or approaching sixty. It was hard to tell but everything about her was pretty tight, with not a wrinkle or sag in sight. She did have a nineteen-year-old daughter, Olympia, but that didn’t really give much of a clue to the woman’s age.

      Vivian remembered to pour tea into three cups.

      “Hot tea?” Mrs. Hurst said with horror in her voice. “Well.”

      “We drink hot tea in the afternoon,” Charlotte told her. “My English grandmother taught us the right way to do things. Hot tea on a warm afternoon. The tea makes your body temperature higher. Brings it closer to the temperature of the air and you feel cooler. Anyway, Grandmama would turn in her grave if I served you iced tea at this time of day.”

      Without further comment Mrs. Hurst accepted her tea. Vivian caught her mother’s eye and winked. Mama’s grandmothers had been French and Mama liked hot tea—that was all there was to it.

      “We are so happy at Serenity House,” Mrs. Hurst

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