Free Bayou Hero by Marilyn Pappano Page B

wishing he could ask? Dozens. Though in his line of work, certainly he would be the soul of discretion.
    Once the paperwork was finished, DeVille escorted them back to the first of the display rooms filled with caskets. Alia would hazard a guess from all the gleaming wood and metal, silk and bronze and just pure impression the caskets made that these were the expensive ones. Jeremiah Jackson had surrounded himself with luxury in life; why would death be any different?
    She walked in, looked at a few—mahogany, ash, teak, all perfectly fitted and designed as exquisitely as high-end furniture. None of them bore price tags—
If you have to ask, you can’t afford it
—and all of them struck her as obscene. The man was dead. Cremate him; donate any usable organs or bones; give his body to a medical school; do anything besides spend a fortune getting him from the coroner’s office to the family vault.
    DeVille cleared his throat, and she turned to see that Landry hadn’t yet crossed the threshold into the room and didn’t appear likely to anytime soon. He hadn’t wanted to come here in the first place, she would bet, and damn well hated it without his sister to make the decisions.
    “You knew him,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You know what Mary Ellen would want. You choose.”
    DeVille couldn’t stop the fleeting surprise—and pleasure—that crossed his face, but he tamped it back into sympathetic concern. “Of course, we can do that, Mr. Jackson. Don’t worry. We’ll take care of Jeremiah as if he were one of our own. But then, he was one of our own, wasn’t he?” From an inside pocket, he produced a piece of notepaper with a flourish. “Here is a list of things to be done—meeting with Father Callaghan, choosing the music, ordering flowers, catering the family meal before the service. If you or Mary Ellen need help with any of it, please don’t hesitate to call us.”
    Landry looked at the page a moment before, folding it to fit in his pocket, then walking away toward the exit.
    Alia glanced after him, then shrugged. “Sorry. He, uh...”
    This time DeVille’s smile struck her as sincere. “Don’t apologize. People react all kinds of ways to death. You’ve probably seen that yourself.”
    Yep, he’d definitely noticed the
ncis
in her email address.
    “Landry said you knew the admiral.”
    “All our lives.”
    “I’m surprised he didn’t make his own arrangements.” She intended to email her parents this evening about the wonderful world of preplanned burial services.
It’s your eternity. Be happy in it.
    “Don’t think I didn’t suggest it a time or two. But he intended to live forever. We believed him, too. He was more active than people half his age, still sharp as a tack. He was a good man.” DeVille hesitated a moment, then more quietly added, “A tough man.”
    Tough. Strict. Rigid.
Behaviors that could get a man killed.
    Before Alia could say anything else, a woman stuck her head out of the nearest office—the only other sign of life they’d seen since they had walked into the building. “Miss Regina’s on the phone.”
    “I have to take this,” DeVille said. “Remind Landry that if he needs anything...”
    * * *
    Standing beneath a live oak in the garden, hands in pockets, Landry watched Alia burst out of the funeral home as if the building was too small to contain her natural energy. Her gaze went straight to the car, then swept around until it located him, and she angled in his direction.
    Instead of watching her approach, he gazed into the fountain and wondered whose job it was to pick out every leaf, pine needle and acorn every single day of the year. Jeremiah had had his own term for such people—
the others
. In his world, there were people with money, power, social status, and there were
the others
.
    Had it bothered him that his only son was just an
other
? God, Landry hoped so. The bastard had likely blamed Camilla for it, though maybe, just once in his life, maybe