Page 142 of The Night Before (Savannah 1)

“Just drive,” she said.

“Your wish is my command.”

“Yeah, right.”

He laughed and so did she. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.

Time would tell.

>

It always did.

“So that does it. The Bandeaux case is officially closed,” Morrisette said a week later as she strode into Reed’s office. She was waving a check and smiling broadly.

“What’s that?” Reed looked up from his paperwork and leaned back in his chair.

“Money from Bart. Can you believe it? He’s actually caught up with the child support. First time in years!” She plopped onto the corner of his desk and folded the check into her pocket.

“He win the lottery?”

“Close enough. An aunt died, left him a little and before he ran out and bought a new pickup—oh, yeah, he did that, too—his conscience got the better of him and he decided to pay me what he owed me before I sicced a bevy of lawyers onto his ass. What a prince. Did I say prince? I meant dickhead.” She ran fingers through her spiked hair. “So—we’re all clear on the Montgomery thing?”

“Think so. Paperwork has to be caught up, but yeah, we’re done. The remains dragged out of the river did turn out to be Marta Vasquez’s. Her mother’s having a memorial for her. I talked to Lucille on the phone and she gave me the whole story. That she had a one-night stand with her boss.”

At the lift of Morrisette’s eyebrows he shrugged. “One-night stand, that’s what she says and does it really matter? The point is who would have thought Marta Vasquez was another one of Cameron Montgomery’s illegitimate kids? Man, did that guy ever keep his pants on?”

“Bad luck for her that she ran into Amanda, or Atropos or whoever she was, before anyone else.”

“One more kid after the old man’s money—she just got a late start. Didn’t realize Cameron was her father until around last December when Lucille told her on the phone.”

“And she didn’t bother telling Montoya about it?”

“She didn’t tell anyone. Except Amanda, as she was part of the law firm that handled Cameron’s estate.” Reed leaned back in his chair and rotated the muscles of his shoulders.

“So where is Montoya?” Morrisette asked as if the thought had just jumped into her head, but Reed recognized the signs.

In the few short days Montoya had been in Savannah, tough-as-nails Detective Morrisette had taken an interest in the younger man. That was the trouble with Sylvie; she was always swearing off men, then falling for the next guy who caught her eye. Reed had to give her the bad news. “Montoya already took off.”

If Morrisette was disappointed, she hid it as she scanned some of the reports littering his desk.

“He said something about taking a leave of absence from the New Orleans force. Seems to think his partner, Bentz, will understand. It’s just a matter of convincing the higher-ups.”

“Why doesn’t he come back here?”

“Probably a lot of bad memories.”

“Yeah, but some woman might make him forget Marta.”

Reed leveled his gaze at her. “As long as some woman doesn’t get too involved with a young buck ten or twelve years her junior.”

“Or even seven?”

“Yeah, even seven.”

Morrisette’s eyes twinkled, but she changed the subject. “I hear Dickie Ray Biscayne is still after the Montgomerys for his share of their estate. He’s kept Flynn Donahue on retainer. Now he wants Cricket and Sugar’s share and maybe even Amanda’s. It seems he learned something about wrongful death from Josh Bandeaux.”

“Greedy son of a bitch.”

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