Laurel dropped the Garden Weasel and stood with her hands braced against the gate that was wedged into the opening at a cockeyed angle. Her breath came in ragged gasps, and her heart was pounding as if she had run a mile, reminding her that she was still physically weak. A reminder she didn't appreciate. Weakness was not something she accepted well, in herself or anyone else.
She twisted her hands on the rusting iron spikes of the gate, the oxidizing metal flaking off against her palms as she forced the wheels of her mind to start turning. She needed a plan. She needed justice. Two months had passed since the end of her last quest for justice, a quest that had ended in defeat and in the ruination of her career and very nearly her life. Two months had passed since she had last used her mind to formulate a strategy, map out a campaign, stock up verbal ammunition for a cause, and the mental mechanisms seemed as rusty as the gate she was hanging on to with white-knuckled fists. But the old wheels caught and turned, and the momentary panic that she had forgotten what to do passed, a tremor that was there, then gone.
"Come along, Laurel. We'll go in to supper." Caroline's voice sounded directly behind her, and Laurel flinched from nerves that were still strung too tight.
She turned toward her aunt, one of the few people in the world who actually made her feel tall at five foot five. "I've got to find out who owns that dog."
"After you've had something to eat."
Caroline reached out to take hold of her niece's hand, heedless of the rust coating her palms, heedless of the fact that Laurel was thirty years old. To Caroline's way of thinking, there were times when a person needed to be led, regardless of age. She didn't care for the obsessive light glazing over Laurel 's dark blue eyes. Obsession had landed the girl in a quagmire of trouble already. Caroline was determined to do all she could to pull her out.
"You need to eat something, darlin'. You're down to skin and bones as it is."
Laurel didn't bother to glance down at herself for verification. She was aware that the blue cotton sundress she wore hung on her like a gunny sack. It wasn't important. She had a closet full of prim suits and expensive dresses back in Georgia, but the person who had worn them had ceased to exist, and so had the need to care about appearances. Not that she'd ever been overly concerned with her looks; that was her sister Savannah 's department.
"I need to find out who owns that dog," she said with more determination than she'd shown in weeks. "Someone's got to make restitution for this mess."
She stepped over the handle of the Garden Weasel and around her aunt, pulling her hand free of the older woman's grasp and heading back down the brick path toward the house. Caroline heaved a sigh and shook her head, torn between disgust and admiration. Laurel had inherited the Chandler determination, also known in moments such as this as the Chandler pigheadedness. If only Jeff had lived to see it. But then, Caroline admitted bitterly, if her brother had lived, they may well not have been in this mess. If Laurel 's father hadn't been killed, then the terrible course of events that had followed his death would never have been set in motion, and Laurel and Savannah would in all likelihood have become very different from the women they were today.
" Laurel," she said firmly, the heels of her beige pumps clicking purposefully against the worn brick of the path as she hurried to catch up. "It's more important that you eat something."
"Not to me."
"Oh, for-" Caroline bit off the remark, struggling to rein in her temper. She had more than a little of the Chandler determination herself. She had to fight herself to keep from wielding it like a club.
Laurel stepped up on the veranda, scooping a towel off the white wrought-iron table to wipe her hands. Mama Pearl huffed and puffed beside the French doors, wringing her plump hands, her light eyes bright with worry.
"Miz Caroline right," she said. "You needs to eat, chile. Come in, sit down, you. We got gumbo for supper."
"I'm not hungry. Thanks anyway, Mama Pearl." She settled her glasses in place and combed her dark hair back with her fingers, then sent the old woman a winning smile as adrenaline rushed through her. The anticipated thrill of battle. "I've got to go find the hound dog that owns that hound dog and get us some justice."
"Dat Jack Boudreaux's dog, him," Mama Pearl said, her fleshy face creasing into folds of disapproval. "He's mebbe anyplace, but he's most likely down to Frenchie's Landing, and you don' need dat kinda trouble, I'm tellin' you, chère."
Laurel ignored the warning and turned to kiss her aunt's cheek. "Sorry to miss supper your first night back, Aunt Caroline, but I should be back in time for coffee."
With that she skipped around Mama Pearl and through the French doors, leaving the older women standing on the veranda shaking their heads.
Mama Pearl tugged a handkerchief out of the valley of her bosom to blot the beads of perspiration dotting her forehead and triple chins. "Me, I don' know what gonna come a' dat girl."
Caroline stared after her niece, a grim look in her large dark eyes and a frown pulling at her mouth. She crossed her arms and hugged herself against an inner chill of foreboding. "She's going to get justice, Pearl. No matter what the cost."
Chapter Two
Things were hopping at Frenchie's. Friday night at Frenchie's Landing was a tradition among a certain class of people around Bayou Breaux. Not the planter class, the gentlemen farmers and their ladies in pumps and pearls who dined on white damask tablecloths with silver as old as the country. Frenchie's catered to a more earthy crowd. The worst of Partout Parish riffraff-poachers and smugglers and people looking for big trouble-gravitated over to Bayou Noir and a place called Mouton's. Frenchie's caught everyone in between. Farmhands, factory workers, blue collars, rednecks all homed in on Frenchie's on Friday night for boiled crawfish and cold beer, loud music and dancing, and the occasional brawl.
The building stood fifty feet back from the levee and sat up off the ground on stilts that protected it from flooding. It faced the bayou, inviting patrons in from fishing and hunting expeditions with a red neon sign that promised cold beer, fresh food, and live music. Whole sections of the building's siding were hung on hinges and propped up with wooden poles, revealing a long row of screens and creating a gallery of sorts along the sides.
Even though the sun had yet to go down, the crushed shell parking lot was overflowing with cars and pickups. The bar was overflowing with noise. The sounds of laughter, shouting, glass on glass underscored a steady stream of loud Cajun music that tumbled out through the screens into the warm spring night. Joyous and wild, a tangle of fiddle, guitar, and accordion, it invited even the rhythmically challenged to move with the beat.
Laurel stood at the bottom of the steps, looking up at the front door. She had never set foot in the place, though she knew it was a regular haunt of Savannah 's. Savannah, who made a career of flouting family convention. She may even have been sitting in Frenchie's at that moment. She had slipped out of Aunt Caroline's house around five, dressed like a woman who was looking for trouble and fairly glowing at the prospect of finding it. All she had told Laurel was that she had a date, and if all went well, no one would see her before noon Saturday.
Suddenly the hound skidded around the corner of the gallery and came to a halt, looking wide-eyed straight at Laurel. If she'd had any misgivings about coming to Frenchie's Landing-and she'd had a few-the sight of the marauder dispelled them. She was on a mission.
A trio of men in their twenties, dressed and groomed for a night on the town, walked around her and started up the steps, laughing and talking, telling ribald jokes in Cajun French. Laurel didn't wait for the punch line. She rushed after them and snatched at the sleeve of the biggest one, a bull of a man with a close-cropped black beard and a head of hair as thick as a beaver pelt that grew down over his forehead in a deep V.
"Excuse me," Laurel said. "But could you tell me who that hound belongs to?"