Free Falling Hard and Fast by Kylie Brant

closer. “And just what is that?”
    Tossing a quick look over her shoulder, Fern lowered her voice. “I know who killed that poor girl a few days ago. And I’ve got me a pretty good idea why it happened.”

Chapter 4
    Z oey looked around the cabin with interest. She’d never seen such a rustic setting. The walls were split logs, still rough, despite their age. The floor beneath her was unvarnished pine, the furnishings as simple as the rest of the dwelling. Set well back from the road, with trees surrounding it, the cabin blended with nature.
    Fern set a mug in front of her and sat down at the table across from her. “Drink it,” she ordered brusquely. “It’s tea I brew myself. Good for just about anything that ails you.”
    As she took a tentative sip, Zoey’s eyes widened in surprise. It was surprisingly good. “What’s in it?”
    â€œNatural ingredients, all homegrown.” The woman drank from her own mug, drained the contents, and poured some more from the pitcher she’d put on the table. “Had someone interested in buying the recipe once. That’d be back in the seventies. A man was gonna brew it up by the barrel, put it in fancy bottles and have it on store shelves all over the state.”
    Zoey lifted the mug to her lips, took a healthy swallow. “What happened?”
    Fern lifted a hand. “Oh, my husband was in poor health by then. We just didn’t have time to think about it. We lived here together from the time of our marriage till his death. Built the place ourselves.”
    When she fell silent, Zoey prompted, “You said you had an idea about the murder.”
    â€œI know what I said,” the older woman replied testily. “I’m not senile yet.” She aimed a fierce stare at Zoey. “You in a hurry or something?”
    Zoey leaned back in her chair and shook her head. “Not really.”
    â€œGood.” Fern reached over and poured more tea into Zoey’s mug. “Never could abide folks rushing around like their house was on fire. And what I have to tell you takes some leading up to, and I don’t like being pushed.”
    Hiding a smile, Zoey drank from the mug and prepared for a lengthy afternoon. Whether or not Fern Sykes could, in fact, shed any real light on the murder, she was convinced that the next few hours would be entertaining.
    â€œThis is an old parish,” the woman began. “Families here can date their ancestors back to the settlers in the region. The Beauchamps, DuPreys and Gauthiers were the first to settle around these parts. Gives those families today something to be proud of, seeing as how their folks were the founding fathers and all. Not that the DuPreys have anything to show for it these days. But Jean-Paul Beauchamp, the old scoundrel, he owned the bank in town, passed down to him from his daddy, and his granddaddy before him. That’s how Tanner ended up with it. As for the Gauthiers, well, they own just about everything else that’s worth owning in St. Augustine parish.”
    The news should have come as no surprise. The home Cage lived in was pure Old South, needing only women in antebellum skirts and men in frock coats to complete its historic image. He didn’t act like a man used to money andthe power it wielded. But she’d learned only too painfully that she was no judge of what was in a man’s heart.
    Fern’s voice went on, wrapping Zoey in a cocoon of times past. Zoey drank silently from her mug, refilling it as the older woman spun tales of times more than a century ago, of history being made in Charity, Louisiana. And, as ordered, she listened silently—until a familiar name startled an exclamation from her lips.
    â€œâ€˜Rutherford’?”
    Fern merely nodded, paused to drink from her own mug. “Oh, sure, the Rutherfords go almost as far back in this parish as the Gauthiers. The way I heard it, first man in St.