Jack Boudreaux. Laurel stood on the veranda, staring at L'Amour.
"Baby, you coming?"
Laurel snapped her head around, a blush creeping up her cheeks like a guilty schoolgirl's. Concern tugged at Savannah 's brows, and she pushed her sunglasses on top of her head.
"I think you've been out in the sun too long. You should have worn a hat."
"I'm fine." Laurel shook her head and dodged her sister's gaze. "I'll just take a nice cool shower before we go."
Cold shower indeed, she thought, shaken by her response to the mere mention of a man's name. Lord, it wasn't as though she had enjoyed their encounter. It had unnerved her, and in the end she'd made a fool of herself. Mortification should have been her reaction to the words "Jack Boudreaux."
She showered quickly and dressed in a pair of baggy blue checked shorts and a sleeveless blue cotton blouse. Barely ten minutes had passed by the time she trotted down the stairs and turned into the parlor, a room with soft pink walls and the kind of elegant details that put Belle Rivière on a par with the finest old homes in the South.
"… poor girl over in St. Martin Parish," Caroline was saying in a low voice.
She sat in her "throne," a beautifully carved Louis XVI man's armchair upholstered in rose damask. Home from her regular Saturday morning at the antiques shop, she had settled in place, kicking off her black-and-white spectator pumps on the burgundy Brussels carpet and propping her tiny feet on a gout stool some woman in the eighteenth century had doubtless gone blind needle pointing the cover for by lamplight. A tall, sweating glass of iced tea sat on a sterling coaster on a delicate, oval Sheraton table to her left.
"I turned the radio off before she could hear," Savannah said, her voice also pitched to the level of conspiracy. She sat sideways on the camelback sofa, leaning toward her aunt, her long bare legs crossed.
"Before I could hear what?" Laurel asked carefully.
The two women jerked around, their eyes wide with guilty surprise. Savannah 's expression changed to irritation in the blink of an eye.
"It should have taken you at least another twenty minutes to get ready," she said crossly. "It would have, if you'd bothered to put on makeup and do something with your hair."
"It's too hot to bother with makeup," Laurel said shortly, her temper rising. "And I don't give a damn about my hair," she said, though she automatically reached up a hand to tuck a few damp strands behind her ear. "What is it you didn't want me to hear?"
Aunt and sister exchanged a look that sent her ire up another ten points.
"Just something in the news, darlin'," Caroline said, shifting in her chair. She arranged the full skirt of her black-and-white dotted dress slowly, casually, as if there were nothing more pressing on her mind. "We didn't see the need to upset you with it, that's all."
Laurel crossed her arms and planted herself in front of the white marble fireplace. "I'm not so fragile that I need to be shielded from news reports," she said, tension quivering in her voice. "I don't need to be cosseted from the world. I'm not in such a precarious mental state that I'm liable to fly apart at the least little thing."
Even as she spoke the words, her mouth went dry at the taste of the lie. She had come here to be cosseted. Only just last night she had gone to pieces arguing with a no-account drunk about a no-account hound. Weak. She shivered, tensing her muscles against the word, the thought.
"Of course we don't think that, Laurel," Caroline said, rising with the grace and bearing of a queen. Her dark eyes were steady, her expression practical, straight-forward with not a hint of pity. "You came here to rest and relax. We simply thought those objectives would be more easily attained if you weren't dragged into the torrent of speculation about these murders."
"Murders?"
"Four now in the last eighteen months. Young women of… questionable reputation… found strangled out in the swamp in four different parishes-not Partout, thank God." She gave the information flatly and with as little detail as possible. Now that the cat was out of the bag, she saw no point in dancing around the issue with dainty euphemisms. Certainly her niece had dealt with cases as bad or worse in her tenure as a prosecuting attorney. But neither did she see the need to paint a lurid picture of torture and mutilation, as the newspapers had done. She only hoped the case wouldn't snag Laurel 's attention. Coming away from the situation in Scott County, she didn't need to become immersed in another potboiler case of sex and violence.
"All in Acadiana?" Laurel asked, narrowing the possibilities to the parishes that made up Louisiana 's French Triangle.
"Yes."
"Are there any suspects?" The question was as second-nature to her as inquiring after someone's health.
"No."
"Do they-"
"This doesn't concern you, Baby," Savannah said sharply. She rose from the sofa and came forward, her pique doing nothing to minimize the sway of her hips. "You're not a cop, and you're not a prosecutor, and these girls aren't even dying in this jurisdiction, so you can just tune it out. You hear?"
It was on the tip of Laurel 's tongue to tell Savannah she wasn't her mother, but she bit the words back. What a ludicrous statement that would have been. Savannah was in many ways more of a mother to her than Vivian had ever been. Besides, Savannah was only trying to protect her.
Hands on her hips, she tamped down her temper, sighing slowly to release some of the steam, feeling drained from what little fury she had shown. "I don't have any intention of trying to solve a string of murders," she assured them. "Y'all know I have my hands full just managing myself these days."
"Nonsense." Caroline sniffed, tossing her head. "You're doing just fine. We want you to concentrate on getting your strength back, that's all. You're a Chandler," she said, seating herself once more on her throne, arranging her skirt just so. "You'll be fine if your stubbornness doesn't get the better of you."
Laurel smiled. This was what she had come to Belle Rivière for-Caroline's unflagging fortitude and ferocious determination. There were those around Bayou Breaux who compared Laurel 's aunt to a pit bull-a comparison that pleased Caroline no end. Caroline Chandler was either loved or hated by everyone she knew, and she was enormously proud to inspire such strong reactions, whatever they were.
"We're going to lunch, Aunt Caroline," Savannah said, slinging the strap of her oversize pocketbook up on her shoulder. The Ray-Bans slid back into place, perched on the bridge of her nose. "Come along? Mama Pearl's gone to a church meeting."
"Thank you, no, darlin'." Caroline sipped her tea and smiled enigmatically. "I have a luncheon appointment with a friend in Lafayette this afternoon."
Savannah tipped her glasses down and arched a brow at Laurel, who just shrugged. Caroline's friends in other towns never had names-or genders, for that matter. Because she'd never been married, or even seriously involved with any of the local men, Caroline's sexual preferences had long been a source of speculation among the gossips of Bayou Breaux. And she had always staunchly, stubbornly refused to answer the question one way or the other, saying it was no one's damn business whether she was or wasn't.
"What do you think?" Savannah asked as they slid into the deep bucket seats of her red Corvette convertible.
"I don't," Laurel said, automatically buckling her seat belt. Savannah drove the way she lived her life.
Savannah chuckled wickedly as she put the key in the ignition and fired the sports car's engine. "Oh, come on, Baby. You're telling me you've never tried to picture Aunt Caroline going at it with one of her mysterious friends?"
"Of course not!"
"You're such a prude." She backed out of the driveway and onto the quiet, tree-lined street that led directly downtown. Belle Rivière was the last house before the road stretched out into farmland and wetlands. But even up the street, where houses stood side by side, the only activity seemed to be the swaying of the Spanish moss that hung from the trees like tattered banners.
"Not wanting to picture my relatives engaging in sex doesn't make me a prude," Laurel grumbled.
"No," Savannah said. "But it sure as hell makes you the odd one in the family, doesn't it?"
She let out the clutch and sent the Corvette flying down the street, engine screaming. Laurel fixed her eyes on the road and fought the urge to bring her hand up to her mouth so she could gnaw at her thumbnail.