Free Bayou Hero by Marilyn Pappano

coerced Camilla and Jeremiah into sending Mary Ellen to a boarding school in Europe.
    “Where was the admiral stationed at the time?”
    “He’d just come back here. He’d pulled some strings to be close to his family.”
    Between the two of them, he and Miss Viola had made the string-pulling all for nothing, and Jeremiah had hated them since. Had it ever bothered him that neither of them had given a damn?
    Abruptly Alia gestured to Landry’s clothes. “You have an appointment?”
    “Funeral home,” he said shortly.
    “I can accompany you. We can talk on the way.”
    “I’ve got nothing else to tell you.”
    As she stood, she smiled, a professional kind of smile, not insincere, exactly, but not really sincere, either. “Then you shouldn’t mind the company.”
    * * *
    After checking in with Jimmy, Alia left the Fulsom mansion for the last time with a deep sense of relief. The house she had admired yesterday was cold today, less welcoming, more intimidating. Miss Viola’s imprint was everywhere, which made the fact that she was dead more chilling.
    The fact that she likely had been murdered...
    “Don’t you fidget?”
    She glanced at Landry. He was sprawled in the driver’s seat, his right wrist resting at the top of the steering wheel, with his left arm on the window frame, his fingers tapping a quiet rhythm to music only he heard.
    “You prefer your passengers on the hyperactive side?”
    “No. But you’re awfully still. And quiet.”
    “Next time I can ask Detective DiBiase to accompany you. He’s never still
or
quiet.”
    Half a block passed before he asked, “How long were you married?”
    Alia stiffened, looked at him, out the window, then back at him. It wasn’t a deep secret. Pretty much everyone in her life knew, including a fair number of people she’d investigated. The NCIS and local law enforcement communities were close-knit, and word got around.
    Still, heat warmed the skin at the base of her throat. “Three years.”
    “And in that whole time, you didn’t try to kill him.”
    “No.” In a softer voice, she added, “Though there were times...”
    Landry smiled. It was a really good look on him. Good enough to make a woman spend extra time checking him out. She imagined on a warm evening, when relentless rain had put a dint in the Quarter’s usual nightlife, a woman looking for a good time knew she’d found it when she walked into his bar and he welcomed her with that smile.
    Further conversation was delayed as he cut across traffic and pulled into the parking lot of what appeared to be another fabulous period mansion. Only the three dozen parking spaces and a discreet sign announcing its name and business gave it away as a funeral home. It was red brick, a bigger-than-life Southern beauty, bright flowers dancing in their beds, Spanish moss trailing from oaks, graceful paths leading from parking lot to doors to small breathtaking gardens.
    “Welcome to DeVille and Sons,” Landry said drily.
    “The Cadillac of funeral services.”
    He cracked a tiny grin. “Yeah, Mary Ellen says they take their ‘end-of-life transition services’ very serious, so don’t repeat that inside.” He opened the door, slid out and frowned at her over the car roof. “Do you know anything about planning a funeral?”
    Alia’s brows arched. “My parents are alive and well in San Diego, my maternal grandparents in Chicago and my paternal grandparents in Miami Beach. I’ve never even been to a funeral. In fact, I was thinking I could wait in the gardens—”
    “Yeah, I don’t think so.” He came around the car, caught her arm and started toward the building.
    Letting a man take her arm and guide her anywhere had been unheard of since she was a toddler and learned she’d rather fall on her diapered butt than have her father, or anyone else, holding her up. But her automatic impulse to shrug away from Landry’s grip didn’t manifest. Not until she’d felt the strength in his fingers, warm, not