LITMIR.BIZ

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      “How long are you staying here?”

      “Just a few days.”

      “Your mom would want you to get back to your career.”

      Gabriella made a soft sound. Her career. She’d made it the most important thing in her life. Until today.

      If it wasn’t for her ambitions, she might have stayed home, but then what? Work as a short-order cook in Lafayette? That wasn’t why she’d gone to the Culinary Institute of America in New York state, then come back to Louisiana to look for a job in the best restaurants in New Orleans. Creating wonderful food gave her a satisfaction nothing else did. Or it had.

      “I’d better get to the funeral home,” she murmured.

      “Your mom didn’t want to be a burden to you, so she had everything spelled out—before …” Again Paula stopped.

      “But I’m going over there anyway.” Gabriella stood and carried her coffee mug to the sink. “Thank you for being here.”

      “Just tell me if you need anything.”

      “Thanks. I will.”

      BEING CAREFUL NOT TO STEP ON anything that would make a crunching noise, the man watching from the shadows of the trees saw Gabriella Boudreaux hurry back to her car. Probably going to the funeral home.

      He waited another minute for the other woman to get into her vehicle. When they had both driven away, he made a satisfied sound.

      With the two of them gone, he could finally have a smoke. He was starving for one. After quickly using his pocket lighter, he took a deep drag on the fag, grateful for the nicotine rush. He’d broken the habit out of necessity in prison. As soon as he’d gotten out, he’d started again.

      While he smoked, he reviewed the day’s events. The old lady had darted upstairs, and he’d followed, knowing that if he pushed her down, the daughter would come running home.

      He was an expert at digging into people’s backgrounds, and he knew that she was one of the children from the Solomon Clinic in Houma.

      It had been set up to help infertile couples conceive children, but that was only a cover for something else. The guy who’d hired him had wanted to know what had happened there. Not the covert purpose, the unintended consequences.

      The doctor had kept records of his activities, of course, but those had been destroyed in a fire long ago.

      A few people in Houma had talked to him about the clinic. Which was how he’d gotten Marian Boudreaux’s name.

      She’d been a good place to start, but his real objectives were the children, like Gabriella. She was the one he really wanted, out here in the country, where there was more privacy and little chance of her screams being heard.

       Chapter Two

      Gabriella was already wiped out by the time she met with Burt LeBlanc from the funeral home.

      He’d gone to high school with her, although they hadn’t known each other well. She hadn’t been really close to anyone, except one girl named Julie Monroe. It was as if she and Julie were on the same wavelength, although she wasn’t sure what that meant exactly. They’d spent time together, until Julie had moved away in their sophomore year, leaving Gabriella feeling more alone than ever. Because she’d never been great at making friends, it had been easier to keep to herself than to try and work her way into any of the established groups.

      Burt LeBlanc, who’d inherited the business from his dad, greeted her as if they’d been buddies.

      She shook his hand, getting through the physical contact the same way she was getting through everything else.

      “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said in the deep, reassuring voice that he must have cultivated.

      “Yes—thanks.”

      “Sit down. Make yourself comfortable.” He gestured toward one of the padded leather chairs across from his broad desk. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?”

      “No, thanks,” she answered as she lowered herself into one of the chairs.

      “I read about your pastry chef career in that airline magazine.”

      She blinked. “You did?”

      “Yes. Very impressive. People in town were talking about it.”

      Again, she was surprised that anybody in Lafayette would take notice of her.

      After relaxing her with a little more small talk, Burt addressed the arrangements that her mom had spelled out—in an envelope full of instructions that she’d given him several years earlier.

      “Your mom wished to be cremated, like your dad,” he said. “There’s a place waiting for her in the columbarium, next to him.”

      The columbarium was a building with rows of little vaults along the walls. Putting Mom next to Dad made sense, particularly because it appeared that the space was already bought and paid for.

      “All right.”

      Burt consulted some papers on his desk. “And, of course, there’s to be no viewing and no funeral.”

      Gabriella stared at him as she struggled to take that in. “What?”

      He tapped one of the papers. “She didn’t tell you that she specified a memorial service—six weeks after her death?”

      “No. Did she say why?”

      “She wanted the shock of her death over, and …” He paused for a moment. “And she felt it would be less expensive. The lead time would give you a chance to prepare some of the food yourself if you wanted to. She thought you could make some of those pecan pies she loved.”

      “Uh, yes.”

      Lord, Mom had certainly gotten into micromanaging the event.

      Gabriella left the funeral home feeling light-headed. She’d braced to deal with her mother’s friends. Now she had plenty of time to get ready for the service. And to plan what she wanted to say.

      Her mother always had been detail oriented. She must have obsessed over all this before she started losing her grip. Or had she already felt her mental state deteriorating, and she’d hurried to write down these instructions while she could still think clearly?

      Gabriella made a small sound as she realized the implications of Mom’s carefully considered list with its wealth of details. Her mother had been forced to deal with a daughter who didn’t always follow the parental script. In death, she had the upper hand—at last.

      BY THE TIME GABRIELLA returned to the plantation house, it was after sunset. The gathering darkness contributed to her feeling of being utterly alone. Neither Mom nor Dad had brothers or sisters. Which meant no aunts and uncles or cousins. It had been a small family, and it would die with her because she wasn’t going to get married and have children.

      Did that make her feel sad? Or relieved? She was too off balance to know.

      Glad that she had left some lights on in the house, she hurried up the steps to the front door. But walking into the hall was like a sudden shock to her already frazzled nerves.

      When she’d come through here with Paula, she’d been focused on her mom’s friend. This time she was alone, and when she stood looking up the steps, an inexplicable feeling of terror swept over her, making her reach out and brace her hand against the wall as she struggled to catch her breath—and scrambled to make sense of what she was feeling.

      Her mother had fallen here. The impact of Mom’s death was hitting her again, which was why her temples were suddenly pounding. However, she knew deep down that her attack of nerves wasn’t just from the accident.

      Paula had said her mom had climbed the steps and fallen. But why had she gone up? To get something?

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