Read Bayou Hero for Free Online Page A

accepted. With the temperature and humidity both hovering close to one hundred, the couple blocks’ walk would sap a good chunk of her energy.
    Again, the trip was made in silence. This time he didn’t pull into the driveway, even though the young officer waiting there would have let them pass. He parked across the street and didn’t even glance to his left.
    “It’s a beautiful house,” Alia said, watching him closely.
    His only response was the twitch of a taut muscle in his jaw.
    “You haven’t been here in twelve years?”
    Another faint twitch. “Closer to seventeen.”
    “Miss Viola said you left home when you were fifteen. Was that the last time you saw the place?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Going out on your own at fifteen...” Alia gave a shake of her head. At fifteen she’d thought she was grown-up and competent, but her parents had known better. She wouldn’t have made it two days on the street all by her lonesome. “Why did your mother let you do that?”
    “She had no choice.” He glanced at her, then at the street ahead, and murmured, “He never gave any of us a choice.”
    The words were soft, not meant for her to hear, and the expression on his face was bitter, resigned. She knew from cases she’d worked that some parents lived to make their children’s lives miserable, but she didn’t understand it. Why bring a child into the world if all you intended to do was torment it?
    Obviously Jeremiah Jackson had tormented his son.
    And that made Landry a viable suspect in Jeremiah’s death.
    She asked the question she should have asked first thing back at Mary Ellen Davison’s house. “Where were you between three and six this morning?”
    He looked at her then, dark eyes locking on her face. There was no guilt in them, no emotion whatsoever, but that didn’t mean anything. She’d met some skilled liars in her life—had even married one. Popular myths aside, there was no way to look at a person and know beyond a doubt that he was lying.
    “I was at the bar. Got roped into filling in for one of my boss’s poker buddies. I didn’t get home until a quarter to six.”
    “So you didn’t kill your father.”
    Again, he took a long time to answer, and again, his features were unreadable. “No,” he said at last, breaking gazes with her, gesturing toward the passenger door, a clear sign he wanted her to get out.
    She did so and was about to close the door when he looked at her again. “But I wish I had.”
    “Watch who you say that to.” Closing the door, she circled behind the car to cross the street. The cop on guard was young, probably very new, hot and in need of a break. She smiled at him as she passed, climbed to the top of the incline, then grabbed a lawn chair and toted it back down. “No protocol says you have to pass out from the heat while you’re on watch.”
    “Thank you, ma’am.”
    “Anybody been here who doesn’t belong?”
    “Reporters. Some of ’em are still taking pictures across the street.”
    She leaned past him to see the small pods of camera-wielding people on the far side of the street.
    “Some people claiming to be relatives stopped by, too. Wanted to go in and get some precious little something-or-other the admiral or his wife promised ’em the last time they were here.”
    “Ah, families. Gotta love them.”
    She climbed the driveway again, studying the windows, the outdoor spaces, the lawn, the flowers, the detached garage. How well had the killer known this place? Had he been a regular guest? Had he lived for a time in one of those curtained rooms upstairs? Had he been a she, come back from her own disappearance to take revenge on the husband who’d cost her a son?
    Once she was inside the house, she wandered through the common areas downstairs before going upstairs. This time she ignored the admiral and Camilla’s suite, turning the opposite direction. The first room she came to was a guest room—lovely, richly decorated. Across the hall was another, and