PI On A Hot Tin Roof

doorknob, ripped open the door, and tore up the sidewalk.
    When she was in the car, doors locked, she stared back at the house. The front door was now closed; there was no sign of pursuit, but maybe her client had gone to get a gun—at this point Talba wouldn’t have put anything past her. She needed to get her breath, but she also needed to get out of there. Hands shaking, heart pounding, fighting for breath, she turned on the ignition and eased the car around the corner, where she stopped, turned out the lights, and let herself recover, breathing deep into her belly, cursing herself for a coward.
    It’s just a physical response,
she told herself.
It doesn’t make you a bad person.
    And in fact, when she thought back on it, there really wasn’t anything she would have done differently, even if she hadn’t lost control of her faculties. Kicked the client in the teeth? Not an option. Wrestled her for the bag? What was the point? Of course, she could have done without the ignominious retreat—that one made her cringe—but mostly it was the way she felt that seemed so dishonorable.
    The thing was—she could see it now—she’d made her mistake while she was still
compes mentes.
She should have just surrendered the damned report in the first place. She’d withheld it out of kindness, and then, after saying she didn’t have it, she didn’t want to admit she did. Pride: a deadly sin.
    On the other hand, if the client hadn’t turned out to be a maniac, it would have been fine.
    Her heart rate was slowing, her breath returning to normal while her mind raced, sifting through the disturbing elements, making sense of them. She was almost good to go when Kristin’s white Lexus sped past the intersection where Talba was parked. Unfortunately, she was turned the other way—she’d only seen it in the rearview mirror.
    But, damn, it sure looked like Kristin’s car.
    Without hesitation, she turned around to follow, but it was too late. The car was nowhere in sight. Still, if it really was Kristin’s car, this shed a new light on things. She drove by the camelback to make sure, and just as she was passing—sure enough, no Lexus—her cell phone set her nerve endings on end. The caller ID said it was the lady herself, which was even more scary.
    Half expecting a death threat, she iced up her voice and answered. “Hello, Kristin.”
    “Omigod, Talba, are you still speaking to me?” The old Kristin. Talba relaxed, but kept her voice below freezing.
    “You want to tell me what happened back there?”
    “Listen, all I want to do is apologize. I think I went crazy for a minute there.”
    “Is that what it was? That ‘bitch’ part kind of got to me. Oh, and the ‘two-bit little lowlife’ thing—been watching a lot of
cinema noir?”
    “Have I been
what?
Oh, I see what you mean.” She giggled self-consciously. “Okay, yeah. That was a little on the
Maltese Falcon
side. You know I didn’t mean it, don’t you? I was just upset. I wanted to apologize before you completely wrote me off. By the way, of course I’m going to pay you. I just thought I’d die if I didn’t see that report.”
    “Want to talk about it? I can come back.” Testing the water.
    “Can’t. I’m in the car. I got so upset I had to take a ride.”
    “Okay, forget about it. Like I said, the job’s on the house.”
    “But you put in all that work.”
    “Not important. Let’s just agree to disagree, as my mama likes to say.”
    “Talba, don’t be that way! Look, I’ll send you a check tomorrow.”
    “And I’ll send it back,” Talba said coolly. She pressed “end.”
    The phone rang again, but she ignored it, started seething again, and mentally replayed both encounters in her head, indulging herself in
l’esprit de l’escalier,
or whatever the phrase was that meant thinking of a witty retort too late. Except in this version, she didn’t think up snappy answers—she beat the crap out of the bitch.

Chapter 24
    Eddie was away the next day, on a job in Terrebonne Parish, so she didn’t even have the pleasure of a morning chat. And she was dying for one. She’d awakened with a new perspective. She had to tell Langdon about it, but she wanted to talk to Eddie first.
    She’d done a lot of thinking about the night before, and she was halfway expecting a call, but she wanted to talk to Warren LaGarde first. To her surprise, he answered her call without any special ruses or pleas. “What can I do for you, Miss Wallis?”
    “I