Read [Bayou Gavotte 03.0] Heart of Constantine for Free Online Page A

answer. “Did they get pictures of you together? You’ll be all over the tabloids.”
    Marguerite hunched a shoulder, while her stomach tied itself into knots like the ones on the Celtic cup. “I’ll survive. It’ll only be for a couple of days, and then some new gossip will take over. Anyway, people do scandalous stuff in Bayou Gavotte all the time. That’s another reason I moved here—because for the most part, it’s an easygoing town.”
    “Next you’ll be saying it’s your civic duty. That you’re contributing to the twisted reputation of Bayou Gavotte.”
    Marguerite cut off a laugh. “Too bad there’s nothing twisted about tantric sex. Now, listen. If they find out I came straight to you, you have to tell them it was for the calendar.” Lavonia was designing a witches’ calendar, and Marguerite helped with the illustrations.
    “At seven on a Saturday morning?”
    Marguerite waved the objection away. “I’m just glad you were awake.”
    “I have a meeting with Eaton Wilson this morning.” Lavonia took two mugs out of the cupboard. “He wants to measure brain activity while people are having visions. He says they need to learn to induce visions by meditating in a sacred space before they can reproduce them in the lab. I think he wants someone to bounce ideas off who won’t act like he’s a nutcase.”
    “Kind of you.” Eaton was borderline crazy, but so was Lavonia. In fact, much of Bayou Gavotte was on the cutting edge of weird, but the university community had to walk a fine line, in touch as it was with the ordinary scientific world. Marguerite added cream to her coffee. “If any reporters find out I was here, just tell them I rushed over first thing because I knew you’d be with Eaton all day.”
    “I’d better not be stuck with Eaton all day,” Lavonia said dourly. “I do have a life.”
    Marguerite grinned. “You have plans with Bon-Bon?”
    Lavonia visibly suppressed an answering grin with the mention of Al Bonnard, the handsome professor she was dating. “Don’t change the subject.”
    Marguerite blew out a breath. “I will do my best to find out who did this to me, but methodically and in private, with no suspicion falling on Constantine.”
    “Unless he did it.”
    “Right,” Marguerite said, and then the caffeine finally hit her brain. “But I don’t see how he could have. I don’t even remember the end of the concert, so I must have been drugged at the back of the crowd while he was at the front, singing.”
    “He could have paid someone to do it, just like he paid someone to poison his wife.”
    Marguerite threw up her hands. “Right, he beckoned to one of his roadies and said, ‘Drug some random chick and drag her on top of the mound. I want to do an unconscious woman tonight.’ Even if he were that perverted, he’s definitely not that stupid. I tell you, I know he didn’t do it.”
    Lavonia fumed silently, which meant she was gathering ammunition. Marguerite breathed in the warmth of coffee and life. “Mmm. Thank you.”
    “You’re welcome, but you’re taking an unscientific approach,” Lavonia said. “If you’re too attached to your hypothesis, you’ll interpret the results to support what you already believe.”
    Marguerite nodded and took a bracing swallow of coffee. “You’re perfectly correct, but you’re doing exactly the same thing, and you know it. Please do me this favor, Lavonia. Either you examine me, or no one does. It’s that simple.”
    Lavonia threw up her hands and motioned Marguerite into the bedroom. “When was the last time you had sex?”
    “Well over a year ago, and you know that, too.”
    Ten minutes later, Lavonia had her conclusion. “No. It’s unlikely you were raped. No residue, no bruising or chafing, no sign of forced entry or trauma to your cervix.”
    Marguerite let out a long breath and sat up. “That’s a relief.”
    “Still, it’s not proof positive. If you would let me send a sample to the