by Mary Ellis
Looking confused, the woman sniffed indignantly. “Mr. Menard isn’t here either.”
Hunter stepped into the foyer and glanced around. The Christmas open houses and holiday parties in the three-story center hall seemed so long ago. “If you don’t mind, I’ll wait for him in his study. I have an urgent matter to discuss.”
His brashness took her by surprise. “He’s not in New Orleans, Mr. Galen. Mr. Menard packed a bag a few days ago and left. He told me not to call him unless the levees gave way or it was a matter of life or death.”
“Where did he go, Mrs. Taylor? This is life or death.”
She clasped her hands together and then shrugged. “Where he always goes when he wants to be alone. He’s at his house in Terrebonne.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Hunter left before the housekeeper regretted revealing so much to the man who jilted the girl she had practically raised.
According to Ashley, Phil holed up in the swamp when he wanted to get blistering drunk so as not to frighten her or the hired help. Hunter headed to the bayou as fast as possible so Menard didn’t get drunker than he already was.
Instead of dwelling on the folly of visiting the father of a sociopathic killer alone and unarmed, Hunter focused his thoughts on Nicki. Even after she learned the true reason for her dismissal, she probably wouldn’t want anything to do with him. She was a country girl from Mississippi. Once he’d caught her studying him while reconstructing the Galen-Nowak accounts as if to ask, How could you let things get so out of hand?
Indeed, how had he? How could he become engaged to a woman he didn’t love, get swindled by a partner who systematically destroyed his company, and, worse, place Nicki in the crosshairs of a dangerous woman? Female jealousy could be deadly even without Ashley’s lack of a moral compass. At least for now, Nicki was safe. Without a job or place to stay, she would have to return home to Natchez. Once James’s killer was behind bars, he would look for her there. Maybe she would give him a chance to make things right or maybe she wouldn’t, but at least she would be out of harm’s way.
Ashley didn’t like being told no. And she didn’t like figuring out he was in love with someone else.
A light rain turned into a downpour during the drive out to Lake Boudreaux, causing the Corvette to hydroplane across the slick pavement. Hunter breathed a sigh of relief when he turned into the drive and noticed for the first time how dilapidated the house had become. Spiky weeds had sprouted throughout the lawn, the kind that pinched your feet if you walked barefoot. Several trees sagged from heavy vines and broken branches, while tattered Spanish moss and dead leaves swirled around the foundation. The house resembled a setting in a Faulkner novel right before an arsonist reduced it to a smoldering ruin. Hunter spotted Menard’s vintage Mercedes under the portico as he crossed the leaf-strewn porch and knocked. Tired of waiting for servants, he would break down the door if he had to.
When the door opened, the butler peered at him. “Can I help you, sir?”
“I need to see Mr. Menard,” he announced. “I know he’s here and I know where to find him.” Hunter strode through the expensive but shabby main rooms toward the back of the house.
“He’s in the library,” the man called as an afterthought.
Menard had remodeled an old porch into something one would expect in an English manor house. The servant didn’t follow Hunter down the hallway.
“Mr. Menard?” He rapped on the closed door. “It’s Hunter Galen. I would like a word with you, sir.” His choice of words struck him as absurd. He wanted far more than a word. When no one replied, Hunter pushed open the door.
Philip sat alone in the dim room behind an antique walnut desk. As expected, an open bottle of one-hundred-proof bourbon reposed on his left, along with a crystal tumbler on his right. The bottle was three-fourths gone, the glass dull with smudges. The room reeked of cigar smoke. But the real ruination lay with Menard himself. Why hadn’t Hunter noticed how paunchy and bloated Ashley’s father had become? Deep lines ringed his bleary eyes—the whites tinged with yellow jaundice—an ominous indicator of a distressed liver. Despite the stifling temperature in the room, a moth-eaten cardigan covered a shirt that looked as though it had been worn for days. Philip’s thick, silver hair was striated by greasy comb tracks, while his aristocratic nose flamed with broken capillaries, another mark of a life ruled by alcohol.
“Come in, Hunter. I was wondering when you would pay me a social call.” His voice sounded hoarse and thick but not unfriendly. He motioned to the leather wing chair in front of his desk. “Have a seat. Care for a drink?”
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Hunter tried to sound concerned, as though he cared about this madman.
“What difference does it make?” Menard tipped the smudgy glass to his lips. “They turned me down for a liver transplant, so I’m dying. You here ’bout that money you owe me, boy, the money your slimeball partner stole?” He filled another tumbler with an inch of bourbon and pushed it toward his visitor.
Hunter decided to see what information Menard offered on his own. “Partly.” He took a small sip and set the glass down.
“That thief robbed me of almost a million dollars when you tally it all up.” A slight slur betrayed his inebriation.
“As I told you earlier, an independent accountant has both sets of books—Nowak’s fictitious set and the one reconstructed from his laptop. When he arrives at the dollar amount you were scammed and not normal investment losses, I will make full restitution even if I have to mortgage everything I own. But that’s not why I’m here.”
“Then you’re here ’bout my Ashley. You ready to make amends and patch things up? I don’t like how you shamed her in front of her friends, breaking up with her like that. But I’m willing to let it slide since her slate ain’t exactly clean as a whistle.” Menard refilled his glass to the rim. “That gal is impetuous like her mother, and she don’t always think clearly. She’s made some foolish decisions.”
Prostitution and blackmail weren’t impetuous mistakes. Did Menard equate his daughter’s behavior to skinny-dipping during spring break? “I’m not here for advice on winning Ashley back. Nothing can be farther from my mind. I’m here to find out what you know about arson and murder in Chalmette today.”
Menard straightened in his chair. “Chalmette? I don’t know anybody living in Chalmette. What’s left out there since Katrina? What are you talking about, boy?”
“I’m no boy, Mr. Menard. I’m the man who will make sure Ashley goes to jail once I get proof. And so will you if you helped her in any way.”
Fierce color rose up Menard’s neck into his face. His hand gripping the glass trembled with fury. “I don’t know anybody out there, so I got no reason to start fires. You’d better talk sense, Hunter, or I’ll throw you out so—”
“My private investigator was living in Chalmette with a roommate. Somebody torched their trailer this morning and killed her friend. I believe Nicki was the target, not her roommate. Nobody had motive to go after Nicki but Ashley, but it’s doubtful she would do something like this alone.”
Menard gazed into the amber liquid as though fitting jigsaw pieces together in his mind. “Your investigator that blond-haired gal who came to your grandma’s funeral, the one you made a scene with?”
“There was no scene in the church. I merely wanted Nicki where she belonged, which is by my side.”
Menard threw his tumbler at the wall, shattering the glass into dozens of shards. Amber liquid dripped down the paneling. “You are a fool, Galen! Throwing away a quality woman like Ashley for some…some Mississippi trash like Nate Price’s backwater cousin.”
Hunter chose not to point out that if any location constituted backwater, it was the house they were arguing in, but it was Menard’s other misconception he couldn’t resist. “So you believe quality women have affairs with their fiancé’s business partners? The same partner that she helped to scam clients out of their life savings? I would say Ashley made her
decision long before I made mine.”
Menard leaned precariously back in his chair as a string of curses spewed from his mouth. “I don’t care about the money. You can tell that accountant to forget tallying what I’m owed. I know Ashley made some big mistakes, but I had a little talk with her and she won’t make any more.”
He sounded sure of himself, but how could he possibly control the actions of a grown woman? “What are you talking about?”
“Look here, Hunter. You patch things up with my daughter. Tell her you’re willing to forget the past and start over. I know that’s what she wants, but she’s too stubborn to ask. You two can get hitched in someplace small but nice. Then take her away from New Orleans for a while. Maybe go to Europe. She always wanted to spend time in Tuscany. Rent an Italian villa for a few months—my treat. We’ll forget the million dollars Nowak stole and consider it her dowry.” Menard chuckled as he reached for the bottle and a fresh glass, his large belly quaking beneath his wrinkled shirt.
Hunter shook his head to make sure this wasn’t a nightmare he’d wake from in a cold sweat. He swallowed a mouthful of bourbon and then set the glass out of reach. “No, Mr. Menard, there won’t be any wedding, small, intimate, or otherwise. You’re not following this, are you? Your little girl, the one you doted on since birth, is a murderer. That’s a tad worse than sleeping with my best friend and helping him steal from a company that would have been half hers one day. She burned a trailer to the ground in Chalmette and killed a mother of two children who had nothing to do with this sordid soap opera. And she killed James Nowak. He may have been a slimeball like you said, but he didn’t deserve to be shot and killed at close range.”
Menard pushed back from the desk as his face morphed into something grotesque. “I don’t know nothing about a Chalmette trailer, but I know for a fact Ashley didn’t kill Nowak.” An evil glint sparked in his dull eyes. “Because I did.”
Hunter stopped trying to gauge how far Phil would go for his daughter. “You killed him?”
“That’s right. He wasn’t just blackmailing Ashley. He started blackmailing me. All she could pay was a grand a month to keep her indiscretions quiet. Nowak figured he could squeeze me for a lot more. So not only did he steal from my investment account, he demanded five thousand a month in cash or he would tell you Ashley was a tramp.”
Hunter could feel the blood drain from his face when Menard voiced Nowak’s tawdry description of his daughter. “I couldn’t let him do that. She was about to marry into the best family in Louisiana. She would be set for the rest of her life. And that son of a gun was about to ruin everything.” Menard’s cold, steely eyes were fixed on Hunter’s. “Nobody messes with my little girl’s happiness. Not Nowak and not you, Galen. So what’s it going to be?”
Menard modulated his tone as he pulled a large handgun from under the desk. “You think about it. I’m offering you a chance to put all of this behind you. I’m still a powerful man. My influence will go a long way in reassuring your clients—maybe some will even stay with your firm. I’ll help you shake off the scandal and put the blame squarely where it belongs—on Nowak’s dead shoulders. I’ll issue a press statement releasing your company from personal culpability.” He paused and sighed wearily. “I’m an old man, Hunter. I’m ready to take my chances with the hereafter as long as I see my wife again. I’m leaving everything to Ashley. Think about what you’re throwing away for some trailer trash from Mississippi.”
THIRTY-NINE
Trailer trash from Mississippi? Nicki heard the hoarse, scratchy words and stiffened her spine. That red-faced old man had better not be referring to her. Ashley must have learned her sweet-talking style from dear old dad. Nicki pressed her ear to the library door and felt her temper shoot into the stratosphere. In the last twenty-four hours, she had been insulted, ridiculed, burned out of her home, lost a friend, and fired—and then she’d watched the only man she ever cared about drive away from her.
She loved Hunter. She must, or it wouldn’t have hurt so much when he walked out of her life. Nicki had never fallen so hard for anyone, let alone someone as rich, powerful, and sophisticated as he. What could she possibly offer a man like him?
It didn’t really matter that she’d been fired. She was going to stay on the case until the job was finished. After all, don’t fired employees get two weeks’ notice? And she had no intention of answering her phone or checking voice mail for the next few days. Hunter hadn’t killed James Nowak. Whoever killed Christine probably had, and Nicki had finally figured it was the bad man on the other side of the door. She would bring Mr. Menard to justice and then Hunter could write her out of his life.
Drawing her Beretta from the waistband of her jeans, Nicki gently nudged the door with her knee. Her concealed carry permit had been waiting in the mailbox at the entrance to the trailer park. Also in the box was a cell phone bill and a letter from her grandmother. Nicki had moved her weapon to a lockbox in her trunk, far from curious fingers if Christine’s kids came for a visit. Now the shiny handgun bolstered her confidence as she nudged the door another inch. Pure adrenaline had fueled her high-speed race from Chalmette to Terrebonne Parish, and one additional surge should carry her through.
“I’m giving you one last chance to do the right thing, Hunter. Think about your family. Wouldn’t they prefer you to put this behind you?”
“Let me think a minute,” said Hunter. His mellow drawl practically curled Nicki’s toes. “Would my family want me to marry a beautiful, hardworking, nice girl from Natchez whom I happen to love? Or a lying, manipulative hooker who’s most likely an arsonist and a murderer?”
“Why, you ungrateful—”
Nicki heard the sound of scraping wood and scuffling feet, followed by the roar of a high-caliber gun fired in confined quarters. She pushed into the room, dropped into a crouch, and raised her weapon. The tang of gunpowder overpowered the smell of dusty books and spilled alcohol. “Freeze!” she shouted. She tried to take aim as two men flailed on the other side of the desk, but everything was happening too fast. “Freeze!” she repeated, seeing the large revolver in Menard’s hand. “Drop the weapon!”
As Nicki took aim, the two men jostled like caged bears, punctuated by a string of French curses. Hunter held Menard’s forearm while the gun’s barrel swung dangerously between a spot on the ceiling and the center of his chest. Unable to get a clear shot, she shouted again. “I’m not telling you again, Menard. Drop the weapon!” A second ear-shattering blast obscured any further discussion on the topic. With her ears ringing from the discharge, Nicki holstered her weapon and launched herself across the desk at Ashley’s father. The two of them hit the polished library floor with a resounding thud, along with an ominous crack of bones.
Menard released a howl of pain, giving Nicki an opportunity to kick the weapon out of reach and slap a handcuff on his right hand. When she grabbed his left wrist, Menard bellowed in agony. “My arm’s broken! Have some mercy.”
Like the mercy you showed James Nowak? The uncharitable thought crossed her mind until her Christian upbringing took control. Nicki attached the other handcuff to the leg of the five-hundred-pound mahogany desk and turned her attention to Hunter. He was slouched against the wall several yards away, his expression an odd grimace.
“Are you all right?” She dropped into a crouch by his feet.
“I’m fine, O’lette. Never better. You saved me.” He licked his thumb and tried to clean a smudge from her cheek.
The feel of his fingers on her face was heavenly, but she had a job to do. Nicki called nine-one-one, gave specific instructions as to her location, and requested an ambulance. After furnishing identification and assuring the dispatcher she was in no immediate danger, Nicki ended the call and slid down next to Hunter. “They’ll be here in three shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
“How did you know to come here? When did you guess it was Philip and not Ashley?”
“It was just a hunch. I planned to have it out with the Ice Queen. You
know, wring a confession from her using my bare hands around her throat. I stopped home to get my micro recorder. That’s when I found the fire and Christine…and you.” Fighting back tears, Nicki swallowed the lump in her throat. “I knew something was off the mark. Ashley might spike someone’s drink or scratch out a woman’s eyes in a jealous rage, but toss a firebomb into a house? I don’t think so. She would be too afraid of breaking a nail or singeing her eyebrows.” Nicki released a sigh. “No, setting a fire wouldn’t be her style…at least, not without help. Then I remembered something I overheard at James’s funeral. Mr. Menard said, ‘This might be tough going right now, Hunter, but everything will work out better for you and Ashley in the long run.’ ”
“I remember,” Hunter said as he settled his right arm around her shoulders.
“I thought it was an insensitive thing to say at the time, but later it got me thinking and I started putting two and two together. Nowak had been blackmailing Menard for a lot of money in addition to swindling his portfolio. When Menard realized he was being scammed, he went to see your partner and in a rage killed him. Then he tried to make it look like a suicide as an afterthought. He must have figured he wasn’t the only one being swindled and many clients would have motive. And the cops probably wouldn’t look too hard at your future father-in-law.”
“You think you’re so clever.” Menard’s voice could be heard from the other side of the desk where Nicki had handcuffed him. “You don’t know anything. You think I did this for money…to get out from under blackmail? I was willing to pay that creep five grand for the rest of my life if he would have kept his mouth shut. But Nowak was drowning in gambling debts and got scared. He said he was going to tell Hunter everything—how he ripped off the company and about the blackmail. Ashley hadn’t been helping him—she was being blackmailed too—all because she sold herself to rich men after college.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I couldn’t let Nowak ruin my little girl’s life. She is all I have left in this world.”
