Mac’s irritation vanished, replaced by a look of dawning realization. Perhaps he admired her desire to pay her own way. Or maybe he just wanted to prolong this meeting for another moment or two before she drove out of his life. Francesca sighed and murmured, “I sure can see the emotions between those two. It’s cozy under that hatch, isolated from the pouring rain in a protected area. Can’t you see how he’s attracted to Jacki?”
Sylvia nodded agreement as Mac’s full lips formed a slow smile and a teasing glint highlighted his eyes. He asked, “How much do you think it’s worth?”
“I hope not more than twenty dollars,” Jacki said with a relieved laugh. “That’s all the cash I have. I don’t suppose you take credit cards?”
“Nope,” he replied. “But I’ll tell you what. Bein’ a bachelor truck driver, I usually settle for the special at whatever truck stop I’m near when it’s time to eat. I . . . uh . . . didn’t notice you wearin’ a wedding ring, so I would accept dinner instead of money. A home-cooked meal might be nice, but dinner out with a pretty companion would work, too. ‘Course I’d like to know your name first.”
“Oh. I — I — ” Jacki ducked her head for a second, then looked back at him. “It’s Jacki. Jacqueline Benjamin. And I might be able to manage the dinner out. Stoves and I aren’t exactly good friends. Microwaves — ”
“Yuck,” Mac interrupted. “Warmed up, already-cooked food isn’t my bag.” He picked up a boy’s tennis shoe lying in the rear of the Jeep and held it high enough above the back seat for Jacki to see. “Guess you’d have to arrange for a babysitter, huh, Jacki?”
Her husky-soft laughter blended with the sound of the rain pelting the Jeep’s roof, and Jacki shook her head, sending silky hair swirling around her face.
“Don’t mention that word in front of my son,” she said. “Or my daughter, either. They both made sure I knew they’d outgrown having a sitter two years ago. If my son had been with me instead of at football practice just now, he could have changed my tire, too.”
“I’m sure as hell glad he had football practice,” Mac murmured under his breath.
Sylvia and Francesca continued watching while Jacki suggested a restaurant and they arranged a time to meet. Mac finally closed the hatch and stood with his hands jammed into his jeans pockets as the Jeep drove away. After it disappeared, he raised his head and shouted into the pouring rain, “Ain’t it a hell of a beautiful day, world?”
“Hummm,” Francesca mused. “Looks like your assignment’s going to have someone else helping take care of her for a while. Maybe a less-experienced guardian angel might be able to manage for the time being.”
“Does that mean I can have my vacation?” Sylvia asked hopefully.
“No,” Francesca said. “It means that as soon as I call Violet in to replace me, we’ll have that vacation. Or, we should probably more properly call it a sabbatical for both of us.”
“You’re going with me, Frannie? Great! Vacations are always more fun when you have a girlfriend to share them with. Where can we go?”
“You said you needed to get away from the stress of modern-day life, my dear. With that in mind, we’ll choose a less stressful place, where you can relax and we can continue our discussion.”
***
Chapter 2
July 2005
“Alaynia Cecile Mirabeau, where the heck did you go wrong this time?” Alaynia Cecile Mirabeau muttered to herself.
Loathe to admit she was lost — and reluctant to stop and ask directions in a strange place — Alaynia glanced quickly at the notes in her hand. The car wandered across the middle stripe in the two-lane country road, and an angry horn jerked her attention back to her driving. A dirt driveway up ahead came into view, and she flipped her blinker on and braked.
She must have missed a turn somewhere. In Boston, she could have pulled over and studied the street map she kept in the dash — after making sure her doors were securely locked. Here in the Louisiana back country, some of the roads weren’t even on the map she’d picked up at the rental car company. And evidently the directions she had written down when she talked to the Baton Rouge attorney were about as useful as her Boston street map would have been in a Southern city.
Alaynia pulled into the driveway and eased to a stop. A ramshackle structure lay at the end of the rutted path, and a tattered window curtain moved slightly. But before she could distinguish the features on the face behind the cracked window pane, a mangy hound scrambled from beneath a sagging porch. Snarling and snapping its teeth, it raced toward her car.
She hastily shifted into reverse and backed from the driveway. Retracing her previous path, she drove toward a crossroad she’d passed a few minutes ago, where she’d noticed a sign advertising Bar-B-Q painted on a right-pointing arrow. Surely a place that wanted customers wouldn’t have a vicious animal waiting to attack.
Aware of her penchant for getting lost when her thoughts wandered while she drove, she’d left the Baton Rouge hotel that morning with what she considered ample time to spare before her meeting with the attorney. St. Francisville, the lawyer had assured her when she called his office yesterday afternoon, was only a half-hour drive north of Baton Rouge. He would wait for her at the plantation manor house, five miles northeast of town. All she had to do was take a right on the first county road she came to after she passed through town, then bear left at each intersection until she came to a sign he would nail to a tree at the entrance to the plantation’s driveway. But, damn it, had he said the driveway where he would leave the sign was on the right or on the left? He’d given her his car phone number, but she wasn’t quite ready yet to call him and admit she couldn’t follow what he had assured her were explicit, uncomplicated directions to Chenaie Plantation.
Besides — she glanced down at her cell phone, which protruded from her open purse — talking on the phone while she drove could be just as distracting as rambling thoughts. If she couldn’t find out at the Bar-B-Q stand where she’d taken a wrong turn, she could call from the parking lot before she drove back onto the highway. She pushed the air-conditioning control up another notch, and cool air gushed from the air-conditioning vents.
July is not the month to visit Louisiana, the attorney had said when he first contacted her in Boston three weeks ago. Why don’t you wait until October or so? Your inheritance isn’t going anywhere.
Shimmering heat waves on the road ahead emphasized the attorney’s warning. Alaynia lightened up on the gas pedal and squinted at the mirage as the road appeared to undulate and disappear. But where at first the heat waves had looked like gently rolling breakers on an incoming tide, they suddenly wavered higher, towering halfway up the trunks of the huge jack pines along the highway.
She flicked a glance in her rearview mirror. No other vehicle in sight. When she looked back at the road ahead, she gasped at the closeness of the mirage after her split-second of inattention — and how high the heat waves now towered. They oscillated in a rippling barrier a hundred feet wide, so tall they even covered the tops of the pines. Her heart pounded in terror and she jammed her foot on the brake pedal. The car screeched down the highway amidst two black streaks of smoking rubber.
The heat waves shimmered over her. She twisted the steering wheel to aim the car into the ditch, but it slid inexorably through the shining barrier before it came to a halt with a jerk that snapped Alaynia’s neck and released the airbag.
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