Andrei Read online

  Florica stopped and frowned. “The gadji. Everyone said she was no good for him.”

  Picking up on that immediately, Andrei asked, “Who is everyone?”

  But the young woman had slipped into her own world. She was on the log now, doing a balancing act as she traversed its rough length.

  “Florica, did you ever hear anyone speak harshly about Theresa Granville?”

  “Papa didn’t like her. He said she would bring about ruin and destruction.” Her voice was small and childlike. “She was a wicked, wicked woman. Married with a daughter and whoring with Carlo. She did ruin Carlo just like Papa said. He’s in jail now,” she finished as if Andrei hadn’t just reminded her.

  “And if we don’t help him, Carlo will die.”

  “Carlo’s dead, Carlo’s dead,” she singsonged to herself. “He’s out of my heart and out of my head.”

  “He’s not dead yet!” Andrei declared. “We still have a chance to save him. If only we can find the real killer…”

  Florica stared at him through the curtain of hair that had fallen across her face. Her mouth was open, her lips moving, but no words were issued.

  “Can you help me, Florica?” Andrei asked. “Carlo was your friend, wasn’t he? Just like I’m your friend?”

  She nodded and for a moment he caught a glimpse of lucidity crossing her narrow features. “Carlo’s being convicted of the gadji’s murder broke my heart.”

  “Then help me—”

  “And my heart will be broken again,” she said, her gaze boring into him.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Bad things happen here in Les Baux,” she whispered. “Bad things could happen to you, too.”

  A chill shot down Andrei’s spine. He pushed himself up from the bench. Did she know something or not?

  Gently taking her hand, he asked, “What bad things?”

  But Florica was already gone, withdrawn into her secret world, a world that even he with his magic could not enter. Rom magic had never worked on Florica, undoubtedly because mentally she was…different. Andrei shook off his disappointment. He would get no more from her today.

  “Florica, I think you’d better go home, or Milo will worry.”

  “Papa?” she said, her focus turning outward again, but away from Andrei. She pulled her hand free and stepped down off the log. “I’m coming, Papa,” she singsonged, then hurried toward the trailers as if she’d actually heard him calling.

  Leaving Andrei staring after her, knowing no more than he had earlier, and wondering why he’d ever thought he could succeed where his cousins had failed.

  ______

  The end of the day brought no cheer to Elizabeth, who’d been in more Les Baux front parlors than she’d visited in years. She was hot and sweaty and more than anything wanted to jump in the bayou for a swim on the way to her late-night meeting with Andrei at the carnival.

  The swim being a fantasy of course. The bayou was for alligators; the shower or tub for Granvilles.

  So it had always been, so it would always be, she thought, undoing the top few buttons of her blouse and unsticking it from where it clung to her skin. Better. Next she removed her jacket and stifled the rash impulse to take off her shoes and panty hose, as well. She really should shower and change, she thought, but the notion still clung that her conservative clothing could serve as armor to protect her from Andrei Sobatka.

  Despite her knowing that no matter what she wore, what she said, he could read her like a book. Always had. He was a man who knew women. At least he knew her.

  Too bad she hadn’t known him as well as she’d thought.

  She’d barely entered the carnival grounds when she heard a voice come out of the night. “Looking for someone, Lizzie?”

  Elizabeth whipped around to face her nemesis, who was leaning against a tree to one side of the office trailer. Though the moon was nearly full, a cloud hid most of it, so she could barely see him there. But she had the impression of lean strength and something powerful, dark, coiled and ready to explode.

  “Andrei, you startled me,” she gasped.

  “Feeling guilty about something?”

  “What? No.”

  “Then why are you so nervous?” He pushed away from the shadows.

  As if he didn’t know.

  Andrei drew closer, crowding her, but Elizabeth refused to give ground. Her mistake. Heat rekindled and sparked and oozed through her pores. Her breasts ached and her center burned for his touch.

  Dear Lord, she wanted him. Right here. Right now.

  Of course she couldn’t act on this desire. She wouldn’t act on it!

  She wished for a moment that she wasn’t such a “lady.” But that was just a fancy that rankled deep within her.

  “So what new information do you have about my mother’s death?” she snapped.

  “Unfortunately, nothing.”

  “Just as I expected.” She sensed him bristle at what surely sounded like a criticism.

  “What? You think I didn’t try?” He crowded her back against the tree. “I spent every minute of my free time talking to people who were with the carnival the summer your mother was murdered.”

  “I didn’t mean that you didn’t try—I know how desperately you want information that would free Carlo. It just seems that the information is nonexistent.”

  But explanations didn’t take the edge off the tension wiring between them, attracting and repelling simultaneously. If only he wasn’t standing so close. If only he wasn’t so interested in her blouse where she’d unbuttoned it. Andrei’s gaze seemed to be riveted by what he saw there. Elizabeth wanted to do the buttons back up, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d unnerved her. Instead, she tried to remain casual, to pretend that he had no effect on her whatsoever.

  “I didn’t learn anything new, either,” she said in a miraculously even voice.

  “No juicy tidbits from Miss Ina?”

  He leaned in and reached out, not to touch her, but to place a hand on the tree trunk mere inches from her head.

  “I…I didn’t see her, after all.” She could hardly concentrate. Could hardly get a cohesive sentence together. “Miss Ina’s daughter brought her to New Orleans for a few days’ visit. She should be back tomorrow. But if you want to know the truth,” she said breathlessly, “I think we’re on a wild-goose chase.”

  “You mean, you still think Carlo did it and you’re resenting the hell out of me for putting you through some minor discomfort.”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth. I hate that.”

  “You have enough experience. As I remember, you were always mouthing your daddy’s opinions.”

  “That was ten years ago!”

  “What’s changed?” Andrei asked. “You still work for him and live with him and defend him.”

  “He doesn’t have anyone else.”

  Nor did she. And no one else had ever suggested that she couldn’t be her own person just because she remained close with her surviving parent.

  Looking for a way to throw him off, Elizabeth asked, “And what does your coming back to the carnival say about you? You don’t belong here anymore. You should have a real life with a home and a woman who’s crazy about you—”

  “Not in this lifetime,” he growled.

  “Why?” she asked, wondering what had happened to sour him on relationships. “Because you can’t commit yourself to anyone?”

  “You don’t know anything about me.”

  She laughed and said, “I know enough,” and tried to push by him.

  But he wouldn’t budge, and when she tried to duck around him, he shot his free arm out to the tree, so that one hand lay against the bark on either side of her face. She was surrounded by him.

  “Andrei, let me go.”

  Her eyes had adjusted to the dark now, and she easily saw the smile tugging at his mouth.

  “So you can go back to that big house with no one waiting for you?”

  “Daddy—”


  “—is in Baton Rouge.”

  A breeze picked up and fanned her overheated body. “What do you care?” she asked softly. “What is it you want from me, Andrei?”

  “This.”

  His head swooped down as fast as that of a bird of prey, and he had her, then, mouth to mouth, chest to breast, hips to hips, her back pressed into the tree trunk. Reminded of her first sexual encounter—a moment in time spent with him—her body came alive.

  His assault was aggressive and tender and coaxing. His tongue gentle and bold and clever. His teeth sharp and quick and teasing.

  No one on earth could kiss like Andrei Sobatka, Elizabeth thought, surrendering to the magic, fearing that if he moved back now, she would puddle at his feet.

  This wasn’t a learned skill, but one he’d been born with. She’d known that from the first time he’d kissed her—and he’d barely been legal then. Over the years, she’d tried to find someone who could outdo him in the kissing department. Maybe then she could have forgotten him.

  But she’d never found his match in any man when it came to kissing—or anything else.

  By the time Andrei came up for air, Elizabeth was panting, ready and willing to take the next step.

  But his step was back and away from her, his arms falling to his sides. She leaned back into the tree to keep from falling at his feet.

  “Run, Lizzie,” he said softly. “Run away home before we both have reason to regret your hesitating.”

  Something about the way he said that disturbed her. He sounded torn…no, tortured.

  “What is it?” She wanted to move to him, so that she could read him better, but she didn’t dare leave the support of the tree trunk. “What’s troubling you?”

  “You are. We don’t belong together, Lizzie, so there’s no fooling ourselves, now is there.”

  Her fingers bit into the bark. He thought she was fooling herself?

  Desire evaporated like sweat in a desert. One second it was there, the next it was gone.

  Angry and frustrated, thinking he still didn’t know his own mind regarding her after all these years, Elizabeth took his advice for perhaps the first time and headed right past him and straight for home.

  ______

  The Granville woman fled the scene, and her would-be lover followed part of the way before veering off in the direction of the trailers.

  Two more problems to take care of—was there no end to them?

  The wind picked up and whistled eerily through the trees. You would think a wind like that would blow off some of the humidity, but not deep in bayou country. Rather, it stirred the swamp stink and cast it over the nearby land, turning the air fetid, like the smell of death.

  On just such a night ten years before, Theresa Granville had drawn her last breath.

  She haunted this place, haunted those involved.

  It should have been over long ago—Carlo Mustov would be dead now, but for the appeals process. Then no one would be prying and poking and stirring up things best left alone. Do-gooders—their numbers kept increasing, if not their sense of self-preservation.

  If Andrei Sobatka and Elizabeth Granville thought they’d been discreet discussing their bargain to find her mother’s real killer here on carnival grounds, they’d been sadly mistaken.

  Whatever information they hoped to find, they were bound to be disappointed.

  No one knew anything that would clear Carlo.

  At least no one who would tell.

  Why couldn’t they all just back off? Why start digging now, after all these years? Why make themselves targets—and for what?

  Carlo Mustov was going to die and soon.

  The question was, how many would have to join him?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “ELIZABETH, DEAR, IT’S SUCH A pleasure to have you for a visit. It’s been far too long. Since the last election, if I remember correctly.”

  Miss Ina remembered exactly, Elizabeth thought with satisfaction, counting on that memory going back even further. They sat in the elderly woman’s front parlor, a tea service laid out on the spindly-legged table. Elizabeth had wedged herself in one corner of the ancient couch with its faded flowered upholstery, while Miss Ina sat in a rose-colored wing-backed chair and poured tea.

  Taking the porcelain cup from the frail hand heavy with rings, Elizabeth said, “I have to admit to an ulterior motive in coming to see you today, Miss Ina.”

  The silver-haired octogenarian looked at her through eyes that were still sharp behind frameless glasses. “What office does your daddy intend to run for this time?”

  “It’s not about Daddy. It’s Mama.”

  “Theresa? But she’s been dead for…let me think a moment…about ten years, I believe.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “And Carlo Mustov is still on death row for her murder.”

  “Then what is the problem?”

  “I’m no longer convinced that he’s guilty.”

  “Oh, my.”

  “But I can’t figure out who else might have killed Mama, either.”

  Miss Ina stared down into her teacup. “I don’t know how I can I help you.”

  “You knew Mama pretty well.”

  “Yes, she was such a dear girl. She used to make a point of coming to see me when I couldn’t get out.”

  “The two of you talked, then.”

  “Of course.”

  “About her? Her problems, I mean.”

  Miss Ina frowned. “Theresa wasn’t much on volunteering that kind of information.”

  “Oh.” Disappointment flooded Elizabeth, making her wonder why she was on this fool’s mission.

  “But then, I’ve always had a way of getting things out of people when they were troubled,” the old woman admitted. “What exactly might you want to know?”

  “Whether anyone had reason to hate Mama…enough to kill her.”

  “Oh, my, no! Everyone loved her.”

  Elizabeth remembered saying the very same thing to Andrei. And she in turn echoed him. “Not everyone.”

  “Well, I don’t think her being too pretty or too well dressed or too involved with the community was her downfall.”

  “You think it was Carlo, then.”

  “I’m not sure.” Miss Ina put down her cup. “She told me she was having an affair with Carlo. I wasn’t shocked, you understand. I’m old. I’ve seen and heard it all. I was merely concerned for her. And for you. I felt she needed some perspective on her situation, so I told her to break it off with him, because he wasn’t worth losing everything over. She agreed. That was the day before she died. Too bad I didn’t speak up sooner. Then, I had no idea that ‘everything’ included her life.”

  “When you spoke to her so frankly, did Mama say anything about being afraid of Carlo?”

  “No. But she admitted to being uncomfortable in her situation with him. She said she felt someone was watching them. It gave her…I believe she said it gave her the creeps. Yes. And that she feared the person would either blackmail her or go to your daddy and tell him everything.”

  Wondering if her mother had been right, Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment, then said, “Well, thank you, Miss Ina. I appreciate your being so frank with me.”

  If only the information hadn’t pointed potential guilt back to her father.

  ______

  Justice is blind. Love is death. The law is impotent.

  And he was living proof, Andrei thought as he spoke to his mother long distance on the phone in the trailer office.

  “I wish I could tell you that I’ve remembered something that would help Carlo,” his mother said, “but I can’t. I so hate that Carlo was convicted on Marku’s testimony.”

  “Do you think Pappa might have lied on the stand?”

  “I don’t know. He and Carlo had that feud over WHAT going for years. But they used to be good friends.”

  “Do you believe Carlo could be innocent, Maman?”

  “I don’t know. ‘You can’t think I’ll simply step
aside. You’ll never be free of me, Theresa.’ That is what your father said he heard.”

  He was getting nowhere fast, Andrei thought. All he’d managed to do was get himself involved with the one woman he should have avoided. The one woman who’d had it in her power to tempt him into making a fool of himself.

  As if his mother knew what he was thinking, she asked, “Andrei, how are you?”

  “The same.”

  “You don’t sound the same. I hear tension in your voice.”

  “Well, trying to clear Carlo is every bit as stressful as I thought it would be.”

  “No, it’s something else.”

  “No. There’s nothing.”

  He heard her sigh before she said, “I am your mother. Any time you want to talk, you know I’m here for you.”

  “I know that and I love you for it.”

  But his mother was the last person in the world he could talk to about this particular problem. And he certainly wouldn’t discuss it here, where anyone could walk in and overhear. Not liking the whole idea of cell phones, he refused to buy one for himself. So he wound up the conversation and rang off before his mother could probe more deeply or someone walked in.

  But he couldn’t forget about it. Couldn’t forget Valonia’s curse that would undoubtedly shadow him for the rest of his natural life.

  Mood dark, he left the office and headed for the midway.

  “Andrei, there you are!”

  Recognizing Alessandra’s voice, he turned as his cousin caught up to him.

  He hugged her and gave her a worried look. “You shouldn’t be here, not by yourself. Where’s Wyatt?”

  “At home, where he needs to be. He’s better, though. And itching to finish what he started before the carnival picks up and moves to the next town. He’s hoping the doctor will clear him for less restricted activity at his follow-up appointment tomorrow.”

  Andrei moved off toward his trailer, Alessandra at his side. He said, “Don’t let him rush into anything he shouldn’t.”

  “I don’t want him to. On the other hand, he’s an experienced investigator and we don’t have much time. Rather, Carlo doesn’t. Barely a week before the execution.”

  A truly grim reality, Andrei thought. “Sabina and Garner and Elizabeth and I are all on it.”