LITMIR.BIZ

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in which she’d grown up and raised her son. The location was perfect for her thriving, sometimes hectic cleaning service, since all of her clients lived in the Garden District. After Hurricane Katrina, each time she thought about her home, she offered up a prayer of thanksgiving that it, unlike so many other houses, had been spared. The wind damage had been minimal: just a few shingles blown off and some broken limbs out of her tree. But she was most thankful that the floodwaters resulting from the levee breaks hadn’t reached as far as her neighborhood.

      As Charlotte approached her driveway and spied her latest tenant, Louis Thibodeaux, pacing the length of her front porch, her spirits sagged. Though she was unable to see the expression on his face, she’d known him long enough to tell that something was wrong from just his stiff and unyielding body language.

      Before he’d retired, Louis had been a New Orleans Police homicide detective, and had, in fact, been her niece Judith’s former partner. Once he’d retired Louis began renting from her, and now he worked for Lagniappe Security, a company that provided bodyguards. Besides their on-again, off-again relationship of sorts, she and Louis had locked horns on several occasions, mostly due to his penchant for being a dyed-in-the-wool chauvinist, which clashed with her independent, self-sufficient attitude.

      Too bad their differences, nor the fact that he wasn’t exactly available, hadn’t lessened her attraction to him though. For a man his age, he wasn’t half bad on the eyes. Stocky with military-short gray hair and a receding hairline, he was actually handsome in a rugged sort of way. And unlike a lot of men his age, his stomach was still nice and flat instead of hanging over his belt.

      The moment Louis spotted her van, he abruptly stopped pacing. Crossing his arms, he firmly planted his feet near the top of the steps and stared at her, his face grim and determined.

      Knowing what a jerk he could be at times, Charlotte braced herself to face him as she pulled into her driveway. Then, suddenly, like a blast of cold water, it hit her.

      Joyce. Had something happened to Joyce?

      Icy dread twisted Charlotte’s heart. Louis’s ex-wife Joyce had cirrhosis of the liver—too many years of a poor diet and drinking herself into oblivion after she’d abandoned Louis and their son, Stephen, who had been a troubled teenager at the time. After over a decade of not knowing where she’d disappeared to, Louis had finally located her in California. At the urging of Stephen, Louis had paid her a visit, mostly to inform her that she had a granddaughter. When Louis learned of Joyce’s medical condition, the thought of her dying among strangers had been more than he could bear, so he’d persuaded her to come back with him to New Orleans, and he’d been taking care of her ever since.

      Charlotte quickly scooted out of the van, locked it, and hurried toward the steps. “What’s wrong?” she asked as she climbed the steps to the porch.

      Louis stepped to the side to allow her to pass, and instead of answering her question, he said, “Can we talk?”

      Patience had never been a virtue that Charlotte laid claim to, and for a moment she felt like stomping her foot and demanding to know what was wrong right then and there. Restraining the urge and reminding herself that Louis would eventually reveal all, but only when he was ready, she nodded and unlocked the front door.

      “Come on in,” she told him, “and I’ll make a pot of coffee.”

      The moment Charlotte stepped inside the living room, her little parakeet Sweety Boy began his usual routine of chirping and preening for attention.

      “Squawk, missed you, missed you,” he chirped.

      “Missed you too, Boy,” she said, and then promptly ignored him as she toed off her tennis shoes and stepped into the soft moccasins she kept by the door. She’d make it up to him later, she silently vowed.

      She also ignored the bird’s squawks of terror when Louis stepped inside, closed the front door, and passed by the cage. For reasons she’d never been able to figure out, Sweety Boy didn’t like Louis, nor did he like her sister, Madeline. Each time one of them entered the living room, the bird went wild, squawking and thrashing about in his cage.

      For once, Louis refrained from his usual ritual of purposely aggravating the little bird, and he followed Charlotte straight back to the kitchen.

      While Charlotte prepared the coffee to brew, Louis seated himself at the kitchen table, and with his arms resting on the table, he stared out the window.

      Waiting for the coffee to brew and growing more fidgety with each silent passing moment, Charlotte unloaded the dishwasher. By the time she’d finished, the coffee was ready.

      She poured them each a cup, set the cups on the table, and then seated herself across from Louis. Her patience at an end, she sighed. “Okay, out with it. What’s happened?”

      The look on his face was a mixture of misery and anger. “I caught her drinking again.”

      Without asking, Charlotte knew that the “her” was Joyce, and concern and relief warred within, relief because Joyce hadn’t actually died, but concern because Joyce knew that drinking again could hasten her death.

      Death.

      Charlotte frowned. Joyce’s doctor had warned her that another drinking binge could finish her off. Her frown deepened. On more than one occasion, Joyce had indicated to Charlotte in confidence that she hated being a burden to her family. Was it possible that Joyce was drinking on purpose?

      Choosing her words very carefully, Charlotte said, “You do realize that even though she’s very grateful for everything you’ve done, it really bothers her that she’s such a burden on you and Stephen. Especially considering the circumstances of your past relationship,” she gently added.

      Anger flashed in his eyes, but before he could reply, Charlotte threw up her hand, palm out. “Just hear me out before you say anything. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not true. You’re thinking that if she was so grateful, then why keep drinking? Why do the very thing that made her sick in the first place, the thing that could kill her?”

      Charlotte reached out and covered Louis’s hand with her own. “Have you even stopped to consider that it’s possible that she could be trying to speed things up, that she’s so tired of being a burden on everyone that—”

      “No!” Louis jerked his hand from beneath hers and shook his head.

      Charlotte narrowed her eyes. “Think about it, Louis! What if—God forbid—the situation were reversed? Put yourself in her shoes just for a moment. What would you do?”

      Charlotte held her breath as Louis stared at her, a myriad of conflicting emotions chasing across his face. Then, without a word or even a sip of his coffee he abruptly stood, turned his back to her, and stalked out of the kitchen. A moment later, Charlotte heard the front door open and close with a decisive click.

      A pain squeezed her heart as she sat in the lonely silence staring at the steam rising from Louis’s untouched coffee. Though her emotions demanded that she go after him and try to comfort him in some way, her common sense kept her seated at the table. She’d already said enough, evidently more than Louis wanted to hear.

      “Que será será,” she whispered with a sigh. Then she bowed her head and prayed, first for strength and mercy for Joyce, then for strength, peace, and grace for Louis, his son, and his granddaughter.

      By six Charlotte had showered, applied fresh makeup, and fixed her hair. After trying on three different dresses, she finally settled for the one she’d tried on first, her old reliable, little black dress. Instead of the string of pearls she usually wore with the dress, she opted for a simple gold chain and a pair of small gold hoop earrings. While fastening the hoops, a mental image of Tessa Morgan’s lone earring came to mind. It really was a shame that Tessa had lost the other one.

      That’s what she gets for hauling all of that stuff around.

      “Not nice, Charlotte,” she murmured as she checked out her image in the full-length mirror. Besides, what Tessa did was none of her business.

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