Midnight Bayou

her, she dashed down, streaked through the open door. She yanked open the top drawer of a dresser and hit pay dirt with the old carved box inside.
    Gold cuff links—at least she assumed they were real gold. Silver ones, too, with some sort of fancy blue stone. Diamond studs, a gold watch. And in a box inside thebox, a woman’s ring of . . . ruby maybe, diamond and ruby, fashioned in interlocking hearts.
    She set the box on the dresser, hunted through a couple more drawers until she found another wad of cash.
    Paid anyway, didn’t you, you bastard. Paid just fine.
    She tossed the bills into the jewelry box, tucked the box under her arm.
    Standing there, her breath whistling out in excitement, cocaine dancing in her blood, she debated the satisfaction of trashing the place. It would be satisfying—more payment. But it wasn’t smart. And she was smart.
    She needed time to turn the jewelry into cash, time to turn some of the cash into drugs. Time to get the hell out of Dodge. Best to leave things as they were.
    She’d go out the other side, just in case her long-nosed mama was looking this way.
    But when she stepped back into the hall, she found herself staring at the third-floor stairs.
    What was up there? she wondered. Maybe something good. Maybe something she could come back for later. Something that would make her rich.
    Her breath wasn’t just whistling now, but wheezing. Her skin was ice cold. But she couldn’t resist the urge to climb those stairs. She was alone in the house, wasn’t she? All alone, and that made it her house.
    It was her house.
    Swallowing continually to wet her dry throat, she started up. Shivering.
    Voices? How could she hear voices when there was no one there? But they stopped her, urged her to turn back.
    Something wrong here, something bad here. Time to go.
    But it seemed hands pressed to her back, pushed her on until, with trembling fingers, she reached for the door.
    She meant to ease it open, slowly—just take a peek. But at the touch of her hand, it swung violently open.
    She saw the man and woman on the floor, heard thebaby screaming in the crib. Saw the woman’s eyes—staring and blind. And dead.
    And the man, his hair gold in the dim light, turned to look at her.
    Lilibeth tried to scream, but couldn’t grab the air. As she opened her mouth, something pushed into her. For one horrifying moment it became her. Then it swept through her. Cold, vicious, furious.
    Another figure formed in the room. Female, sturdy, in a long night robe.
    Julian.
    And in speechless terror, Lilibeth turned and ran.

17
    W ithin twenty-four hours, Declan discovered he had more help on the house than he knew what to do with. Apparently everyone in Louisiana was invited to the wedding, and they were all willing to lend a hand.
    He had painters, plumbers, carpenters and gofers. And though it occurred to him in the middle of the melee that if half that amount had pitched in to repair the original venue, the job would have been done in about twenty minutes, he decided to keep the thought to himself.
    It seemed rude to voice it.
    And he appreciated the labor, sincerely. Reminded himself of it whenever he felt certain pieces of the house slipping away from him into someone else’s charge.
    He’d been looking forward to screening in the lower rear gallery himself, but comforted himself that one good hurricane would demand rescreening.
    He’d intended to sand and varnish the ballroom floors, but bucked up when he thought of all the other floors waiting for him throughout the house.
    And he sure as hell didn’t mind turning over the exterior painting to others. It was a hot, exacting and laborious job, and crossing it off his list left him free to tackle the downstairs powder room, and to hang the blown-glass chandelier he’d bought for the foyer, and to finish plans for the mud room. And . . .
    Well, there was plenty to go around, he reflected.
    Then there was the pure pleasure of watching Effie zip in and out on her lunch hour or after work. Even when she brought her mother in tow. Mrs. Renault was a spit-and-polished older version of her daughter with an eye like an eagle and a voice like a drill sergeant.
    Remy was right, she was pretty scary. Declan hid from her, whenever possible and without shame.
    On the second day of the full-out campaign, Declan strode toward the rear gallery to check progress. He was feeling pretty peppy from the tile he’d just set, was covered with ceramic dust from