Alligator Moon. Joanna Wayne

the café in town and asked a few questions. Mostly she’d learned that folks didn’t hang out in the café on Sundays and that the waitress named Lily didn’t care much for reporters.

      Cassie slowed and glanced at the map she’d printed from the Internet. If her directions were accurate, she should be close to the Center now. A half mile later she saw the gate, a massive iron affair just off the road.

      She pulled into the paved drive and pushed the button on the entry panel. The intercom hummed softly, followed by a female voice.

      “Welcome to Magnolia Plantation. How may I help you?”

      She felt a little like a predator at the home of one of the little pigs. Let me in so that I can eat you. Or she could just say she was a reporter. That would get her about the same reception.

      “I’m interested in touring the Center.”

      “I’m sorry. The plantation and grounds are private. No one’s admitted except our registered guests and our staff.”

      “How do I find out if I want to be a registered guest if I can’t view the facilities?”

      “You can make an appointment during business hours and Dr. Guilliot will meet with you personally.”

      “I drove all the way from New Orleans. Can’t I just take a quick look around?”

      “I wish I could say yes, but the rules are strictly enforced to preserve the privacy of our guests. I’m sure you can appreciate that.”

      And keeping out reporters was just a little lagniappe. Cassie climbed from her car, walked over to the gate and peered through the ornate pattern of iron bars. The driveway was long and winding, the extensive grounds perfectly manicured. Only glimpses of the plantation house were visible through the trees, but Cassie saw enough to tell that the place was not only massive but beautifully restored.

      She was still staring when a mud-encrusted black pickup truck pulled in and stopped, blocking her car between its front bumper and the gate.

      The man who stepped from behind the wheel was tall and muscular with long, straggly hair and a tanned face spiked with coarse black whiskers. He walked toward her, emanating a kind of raw animal potency that seemed more than a little menacing.

      “Are you looking for Dr. Guilliot?” he asked, his hard stare never wavering.

      “Not particularly.”

      “Then who are you looking for?”

      None of his damned business. She started to fire that comment at him, but stopped herself. It wasn’t smart to start fights when she was sniffing out a story. “I’m just interested in the clinic.”

      “Like hell you are. You’re interested in digging up dirt for that magazine you work for.”

      “How do you know who I work for?”

      “You didn’t exactly sneak into town quietly. Even if you had, a stranger always gets noticed here.”

      “Who are you?” she demanded, wishing he wasn’t standing between her and her car.

      “John Robicheaux.”

      “Any kin to Dennis?”

      “His brother.”

      “I see. I’m sorry. His death must have been a shock for you.”

      He ignored her expression of sympathy. “Did Dr. Guilliot ask you to come see him?”

      “I haven’t talked to Dr. Guilliot.”

      “So you just smelled a little dirt and came running?”

      “Did you follow me out here from town to harass me, Mr. Robicheaux?”

      “Is that what I’m doing? Harassing? I thought we were just having a friendly conversation.”

      “Then your conversational skills need to evolve past the Neanderthal stage.”

      “I don’t plan to do a lot of conversing. Two brief statements should cover everything. One, I don’t like the idea of my brother’s death being made into tabloid entertainment. Two, I sure as hell don’t want the details surrounding his murder being manipulated by Dr. Norman Guilliot.”

      “Murder? The police report indicates that your brother’s death was suicide.”

      “Yeah, well don’t go laying your money on what the cops say, Ms. Pierson.”

      “What makes you think Dennis was murdered?”

      “Not think. Know.”

      “What makes you know?” she asked, trying to sound only mildly interested.

      “I was with Dennis last night. He had plans and eating a bullet wasn’t one of them.” John stepped closer, but the fury he’d exhibited when he first arrived seemed to have settled into a brooding pain that glazed his eyes and made them dark as night.

      The mood switch tangled Cassie’s emotions. Had he concocted some bizarre murder plot in his mind to keep from facing the fact that his brother had taken his own life, or did he know something he wasn’t saying? Was it possible that the sleepy bayou town of Beau Pierre harbored a cache of frightening secrets?

      “If I were you, Ms. Pierson, I’d get in that car and drive back to New Orleans, find some nice little story about the mayor or concentrate on the city’s plague of potholes.”

      “What is it you want from me, Mr. Robicheaux?”

      “Nothing. I’m only suggesting you not become one of Dr. Guilliot’s pawns.”

      “You surely aren’t accusing Dr. Guilliot of killing your brother.”

      “Look around you,” he said, motioning toward the broad estate beyond the ornate gate. “The gold mine of the patron saint of the scarred and wrinkled rich. My brother was a lowly, dispensable anesthetist, a nice scapegoat for Ginny Flanders’s death. You figure it out from there.”

      Finally he released her from the power of his hypnotic stare and walked back to his pickup truck. He climbed behind the wheel and drove away without a backward glance.

      She stared after him, feeling as if something more than a conversation had passed between. The guy had uncanny powers, a prowess at seducing the mind that bordered on the paranormal, but that didn’t mean his accusations were on target.

      Still when she turned to stare once again through the massive iron gates, she felt a sense of foreboding creep into her bloodstream and raise the hairs on the back of her neck. This had nothing to do with her, but deadly secrets had a way of entangling anyone who stumbled into their path.

      And if there were secrets, she was certain John Robicheaux of the dark eyes and fiery Cajun blood was part of the mystery.

      Either way Cassie felt sure she hadn’t seen the last of the man. She’d reserve judgment until later on, whether that was good or bad.

      JOHN HAD KNOWN the reporters would start pouring into Beau Pierre before Dennis’s body was good cold. That’s why he’d done his homework, picked out the best one to pull into his murder theory. He knew the sheriff would try to downplay it, and Guilliot’s lawyers in the Flanders’s trial definitely would, but John had no intention of letting that happen.

      He’d decided the Crescent Connection was the way to go. The magazine had clout and they’d eat up a controversy like this, gnaw on it and give it so much attention, the sheriff would have to conduct a real investigation. That’s why he’d asked Lily Robert down at the café to let him know if someone from the Connection showed up asking questions. Not much went on in Beau Pierre that Lily didn’t hear about.

      He hadn’t expected the reporter to be female—or pretty—but it didn’t matter to John. He’d said his piece, planted the thought, and that should do it.

      Cassie Pierson. The name sounded familiar. Pierson. As in Drake Pierson,