Quarter to Midnight (A New Orleans Novel Book 1)

I THINK THAT’LL DO it,” Gabe said to his assistant manager, ignoring the withering look on his cousin Patty’s face. “Did I miss anything?” he added, because his assistant manager was biting her lip.

Donna Lee Green shook her head. “Nothing, Chef. We’ve covered it all and there’s nothing here that we can’t handle in your absence. We’ll be fine.”

She winced a little. “But are you okay?”

He drew an unsteady breath. Her compassion was expected, but it still rattled him. He didn’t want sympathy. He didn’t want pity. But this wasn’t either of those things. It was concern that stemmed from genuine affection.

He’d worked with Donna Lee for years, long before he’d started the Choux.

He’d handpicked her, lured her away from their former employer, and she was the best assistant manager anyone could ask for.

“I’ll be okay. It’s just that I need a little time. To process.”

Donna Lee nodded. “For what it’s worth, we all thought you came back too soon after Rocky’s passing.” She cast a glance heavenward, crossing herself. She’d loved his dad, too.

Everyone had.

Except for the bastard who’d killed him.

Gabe found a smile. “Thank you. You have my number. Call me if you need to.”

“I will.” She squeezed his arm. “But I won’t need to. Take care of yourself, Chef. See you soon.”

The office was quiet after Donna Lee had shut the door behind her, leaving him and Patty alone. Patty was short for Patience, but his cousin didn’t have much of that. Five seconds ticked by as Gabe waited for his cousin’s explosion.

He wasn’t disappointed.

“What the fuck, Gabe?” she hissed.

“I have vacation saved,” he said mildly, knowing his leave of absence wasn’t what had her so heated up. “Several weeks’ worth.”

“Because you work yourself to damn death.” She sat on the corner of the desk closest to his chair, hugging herself. “And you know that isn’t what I meant.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “But it is true. I need some time away.”

“Why? What’s wrong? And don’t tell me nothing. I know you, boy. I know your tells.” She leaned forward until they were nose to nose. “I know that something’s happened, and I know it’s bad. So tell me.” She lifted her chin. “Or I’ll tell Mama on you.”

He narrowed his eyes. “That’s low, even for you.” Because his aunt Viola was a master interrogator. Gabe was never sure just how she did it, but she got results. Vi would never tell his secrets to a soul, but she wouldn’t rest until he’d unburdened himself.

He always felt better afterward, but this time was different. The image of his father flashed through his mind. Not the one he wanted to remember, his dad smiling at him, chowing down on a bowl of gumbo, but the photo from the police report. The one that bastard Cresswell had “slipped” and shown him.

His father, slumped on the kitchen table, the exit wound in his skull the size of Gabe’s fist. That could happen to his aunt Vi. To his uncle George. To Patty. At least his aunt Gigi on his mother’s side was safe up in Montreal. But the others? They were right here, in New Orleans. They could be in danger.

They were the only close family he had left. The less they knew, the safer they’d be.

Bile rose in his throat and he cleared it roughly. “Patty.”

Patty paled. “Tell me,” she whispered.

He swallowed hard. “I can’t. Please. I can’t.”

Patty’s face lost more color, making the freckles across her nose and cheeks stand out in stark contrast. “You’re scaring me, Gabe.”

A light knock at the door interrupted the moment.

“Go away,” Patty said loudly.

“Come in,” Gabe said at the same time, even more loudly.

The door cracked open. “It’s Molly, Gabe. Molly Sutton.”

Relief washed over him. Saved by the Molly-bell. “It’s okay, Molly.

Please, come in.”

Patty’s glare said that he’d be sorry for this, but she slowly stood and faced the door. Then stared in stunned surprise. “Well, hello.”

Molly smiled uncertainly. “Hi. I’m sorry. I’m clearly interrupting. I’ll wait in the dining room.”

“No.” Gabe rose and rounded the desk, his hand outstretched. “Please. Let me introduce you to my cousin, Patty.” His back to his cousin, he mouthed to Molly, “She doesn’t know.”

Molly tipped her head down in the slightest of nods. “Hi, Patty. It’s so lovely to meet you.”

Patty shook Molly’s hand, her eyes narrowing as she glanced between him and Molly. “Likewise. Happy birthday.”

Molly smiled as if she and Gabe were going on a date instead of embarking on a murder investigation. “Thank you. I have to say, your étouffée was amazing last night, just like always. Your restaurant is where we always come to celebrate.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” Patty’s gaze darted back to Gabe. “So . . . you two are together?”

He opened his mouth to correct her, but luckily Molly beat him to it.

Molly’s smile never wavered. “We’re colleagues, of a sort. He’s going to teach me to make that sinful cake that my friends and I demolished last night.”

Patty’s lips curved, and Gabe drew an easier breath. “You’d be the first person he showed how to make that cake,” she said with false casualness. “It took me years to get the recipe, and Gabe and I grew up together.”

So, not such an easy breath. Patty was still suspicious. She’d have to stay that way.

“I’m ready to go whenever you are, Molly.” He made a show of cleaning off his desk, even though it was already spotless.

“And how long will you be gone?” Patty asked. “Teaching her how to make your secret cake?”

Oh yeah. She was still suspicious. And pissed off. Bad combination.

“I don’t know. After I’ve taught Miss Sutton how to bake a cake—and I never said it would be my secret-recipe chocolate cake—I plan to get away by myself for a little while. I should still be in cell range, so call if you need me.” He leaned in and kissed Patty’s cheek. “I’ll be okay. I promise.”

Patty nodded, her throat working as if she were trying not to cry. Then she turned to Molly, looking her up and down, her eyes narrowing in on the slight bulge at Molly’s side, covered by her jacket.

“You’re carrying,” Patty said, her voice barely a whisper. “Gabe, why are you leaving with a woman carrying a gun?”

Molly looked down at herself. “Well, shit. You’ve got a good eye, Patty.”

“You’ve got a good tailor,” Patty replied evenly. “I might not have noticed, but it’s not normal to wear a jacket in this heat.” She turned to Gabe.

“I’m waiting.”

Molly’s brows lifted, seeking guidance.

He lowered himself to the edge of the desk, letting his head fall forward.

“Fucking hell, P.”

Patty came into his field of vision, squatting low and looking up. “Tell me.”

Gabe met Molly’s gaze helplessly.

“You want me to tell her?” she mouthed silently.

He shook his head, his gaze locking onto Patty’s, rising as she straightened to her full height, which was only five foot two. “I think my dad was murdered,” he said softly, so that no one outside the office could overhear. “I hired Miss Sutton to investigate.”

Patty’s mouth fell open. Then closed. Then opened again. She remained silent, though, maybe for the first time ever.

From the corner of his eye, he watched Molly walk to the corner of the office where they kept a case of bottled water. She pulled two bottles from the case and handed one to Patty and the other to Gabe.

Patty nodded her thanks, still silent. She took several big gulps of water, then sat in one of the visitor chairs, visibly shaken. Finally, she cleared her throat. “How?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I hired Miss Sutton—to find out.”

Patty shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. How did you know? How did you even suspect?”

Gabe didn’t want to have this conversation. Not ever. But especially not here and not now. “I don’t want to talk about it here.”

“Then let’s go where you do want to talk about it,” Patty snapped.

“Because you will tell me. Are you in danger?” Then she blinked. “Am I in danger?” she whispered.

Gabe had intended to keep his family in the dark until he saw the fear in his cousin’s eyes. He met Molly’s gaze, found her as calm and compassionate as she’d been in Burke’s office. “I need to tell her,” he murmured. “So that she can be careful, too.”

Patty went sheet-white at that. “Mother of God,” she whispered.

Molly smoothed a hand over Patty’s back. “Come with us. We’ll sit in a secure area and have a chat.”

“Where?” Patty asked mutinously. “Gabe may have hired you, but I don’t know you.”

“Let’s go to our office. I work for a guy named Burke Broussard.”

Some of Patty’s tension dissipated at that. She looked at Gabe. “Your dad’s old partner? That Burke Broussard?”

“One and the same. I trust him. And I trust Molly.”

Patty nodded once. “Then let’s go. I’ll tell Donna Lee that I’m leaving for a while.”

The Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana

MONDAY, JULY 25 , 1:45 P.M.

“Did you have a nice lunch with the mayor, sir?”

Lamont slid into the back of the town car. Black, of course. In New Orleans in damn July. Thank the good Lord for air-conditioning.

“I did, indeed,” he told his driver, whose name actually was James.

Telling him Home, James had gotten old after the first week, however, which had been at least twenty years ago. Loosening his tie, he handed a paper bag over the front seat into James’s hands. “The mayor’s chef made shrimp po’boys. I asked him to make one for you.”

James beamed because shrimp po’boys were his favorite. “Thank you, sir.” He set the bag aside and turned to face traffic. “Where to now?”

“Back to the office.”

His meeting with the mayor had been very successful, but he had actual work to complete. One of these days, lunch with important people would be the work, but he wasn’t there yet. Soon. Very, very soon.

He shrugged out of the hot jacket and pulled his phone from a pocket, hoping to see a message from Stockman, but there were no new messages from his right-hand man. Which meant the Houston kid was still breathing, dammit.

There was, however, a text message from a very familiar number.

Call me.

He swallowed his sigh. Jackson Mule was becoming a pain in his ass.

Correction: Jackson Mule had always been a pain in his ass, ever since they’d been kids back in the old neighborhood. Some people did not change.

Irritated, Lamont settled into his seat and hit Jackass’s name in his contacts list—labeled “Jackass” because that had been Mule’s nickname for decades. “What?” Lamont snapped when the man answered.

“Monty, please. Is that any way to speak to your partner?”

Lamont ground his teeth. He hated to be called Monty, and Jackass knew it. He supposed it was only fair that the man called him a nickname, too, but it didn’t mean he had to like it. “What is it?”

An exasperated sigh was his reply. “I’ve got information you will want to know, but I can always hang up and let you get back to whatever it was you were doing that’s more important than talking to me.”

Someday . . . Someday he’d kill the bastard. He’d make it hurt, too. For now, he needed him. “For Christ’s sake, just tell me.”

“Your boy’s boy has done hired himself a PI.”

Lamont went still, his heart skipping a beat. Calm. Be calm. “Explain, please.”

“Well, since you said please so nicely.” A deep chuckle resonated through the phone. “I got a call from my mole in the Choux.”

“Your what?”

“My mole in Le Petit Choux.”

“You hired a—” He broke off, his glance flicking to James, who, thankfully, was paying considerable attention to the midday traffic. “I didn’t tell you to hire someone.”

“Hm. I don’t suppose you did. Because you are my partner, not my boss.”

I’ll be your fucking executioner, you stupid piece of shit. It was Jackass’s fault that he was in this mess to begin with. His partner had kept Rocky’s investigation to himself for years. Hadn’t seen fit to share that there’d been a goddamn witness until the Morrow kid’s name popped up again two months before. “Why did you?”

“Because I wanted to have eyes on our boy’s boy. You wouldn’t agree to killin’ him, after all.”

“You are correct about that last part.” Because killing Rocky Hebert’s son was too damn risky. One washed-up, drunken ex-cop killing himself was totally believable. But his up-and-coming chef son? Who had no history of depression or alcoholism or suicidal tendencies? That would never fly.

Although now that the son had hired a PI, he might need to rethink that decision. “Nor did I agree to hiring someone.”

The deep rumble on the other end grew cold. “Do you want to know about the PI or not?”

“I do.” He gritted his teeth. “Please.”

“She came into the Choux to see Rocky’s boy. Left with the boy and his cousin.”

“The co-owner.”

“The very one. Both cousins seemed agitated and worried, but the woman PI was as cool as a cucumber.”

Agitated and worried. Dammit. “Wait. He hired a woman?”

“He did. Pretty thing, too. Wearing a jacket in this heat.”

Which meant she’d been armed. Fucking hell. He hadn’t anticipated this, but knowing that Gabriel Hebert suspected something was good intel. The mole had been useful, not that he’d ever admit it. “Do you have a name?”

“My mole got a gander at her license plate as she was driving the cousins away. Registered to a Margaret Sutton. Got her PI license a few years ago.”

“Her background?”

“Been here in New Orleans for three years. Before that, she was a cop in North Carolina, State Bureau of Investigation. Before that, she was a Marine.”

Fuck. She’d be formidable, then. “Who’s her employer? Or does she run her own business?”

“Not sure yet, but I’m gonna find out. There’s one question you didn’t ask, but should have.”

He ground his teeth again. “Which was?”

“Why she left the North Carolina SBI.”

After a pause of several seconds, he ground his teeth harder. “Why did she leave?”

Another annoying chuckle. “I thought you’d never ask, Monty. She killed her own brother-in-law.”

He blinked. He hadn’t expected that. “Why?”

“It was ruled self-defense, but you know how that goes. One cop coverin’

for another.”

“Yes,” he said dryly. “I know all about that.”

“I’m sure you do. I’ll find out who her boss is and let you know. I suppose the question we both should be asking is, why now? What does Rocky’s boy know that had him hiring a PI?”

“And who has he told?”

“Exactly. I’m on it and I’ll let you know when I find out more. Then we can figure out how to handle him.”

“What do you mean, you’re ‘on it’?” Lamont asked warily.

“I’ve got eyes on the woman as we speak.”

“Make sure they’re discreet,” he snapped.

“As always.” The reply was an infuriating drawl with a touch of malice.

“Fine. I’ll be waiting.” Lamont ended the call and, looking around, found that they’d progressed all of two blocks. Damn festivals. They gummed up the works, seemed like every damn week.

“What’s going on this week, James?”

James’s gaze flicked to meet his in the rearview mirror before returning to the long line of cars that stretched before them. “Satchmo, sir.”

“But that doesn’t start for two more days.” He shook his head. “Never mind. Damn tourists.”

“Yes, sir. I’m glad for their money, but not for their traffic jams.”

“You and me both,” he grumbled, checking his calendar. At least his personal assistant had cleared his afternoon of meetings. He tapped on her name, unsurprised when she answered on the first ring. “Ashley, I’m stuck in traffic.”

“I figured you would be, sir. That’s why I cleared your calendar. SummerFest traffic.”

He smiled in spite of his irritation at the delay. Ashley always made him smile. She’d make a good wife number four, if she stuck around long enough for him to be rid of wife number three. “Any calls while I was out?”

“Just your wife, sir. She said she’d talk to you later.”

He ground his teeth again. He had to stop doing that. His teeth would be nothing but nubs by the end of the day at this rate. “I talked to her before I went to lunch.”

“I know, sir. She told me. She was . . . well, unhappy with me.”

He frowned. “Did she say anything to you?”

“Not really. Accused me of lying about your whereabouts like she always does. But—” Her voice dropped to below a whisper. “I think she suspects.”

Not a surprise, considering Joelle had been his personal assistant when he’d had an affair with her while married to wife number two. “Just stay out of her way. I’ll deal with her later. Can you send the Nelson file to my email? I have no idea how long I’ll be stuck in the car, and I’d like to have it read before I meet with him at dinner.”

“Doing it now.” Her voice warmed. “I’ll, um, see you later.”

“Yes, you certainly will.” He ended the call and leaned forward. “James, did my wife call you today?”

James’s wince was answer enough. “Yes. Three times while you were in with the mayor.”

“I see. I’m sorry about that. She’s in a mood today.”

James said nothing because he was a very smart man.

Joelle would have to be dealt with soon. She needed to be calm and unruffled and proper, not some screaming fishwife. Looking out the window at the tourists, he scowled. He couldn’t divorce her soon enough. And, as tempting as killing her was, having her commit suicide was too risky, seeing as how that was what ended wife number one. It was one of his favorite ways of eliminating human obstacles. Case in point, Rocky Hebert.

His son knows. Although what the chef knew was still to be determined.

He could have hired a PI to investigate something entirely unrelated to his father’s “suicide.”

Lamont would worry about that when they knew for sure what Rocky’s boy had discovered.

He reined his thoughts back to the annoyance that was Joelle. Eventually, once his political career was firmly established, he would get rid of her. But he didn’t think she’d agree to a simple divorce, and he didn’t want to have to create a sexual scandal like he had with wife number two, who’d expected to receive alimony.

Alas for Francesca, she’d been caught cheating with one of his best interns. Kid had unwittingly done him a real solid by fucking his wife, but the aftermath had been embarrassing.

So suicide was out. Divorce would take too long. But maybe Joelle could meet with an unfortunate accident.

That cheered him immensely. Hell, he could milk the hell out of being a grieving widower.

Should be worth a few votes when election time rolled around. Assuming he won—which he would—he could introduce legislation to decrease the danger of whatever it was that had killed her. He’d even name the bill after her. It was only right, after all.

The Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana

MONDAY, JULY 25 , 1:55 P.M.

Molly Sutton drove a big-ass, double-cab Toyota Tundra truck in fire-engine red, which had surprised Gabe. It seemed very conspicuous for a PI’s vehicle, but Molly had told him that it wasn’t her normal ride when he’d said as much. Normally she drove a boring sedan, but her sister had borrowed it today. After that exchange, they’d fallen quiet, Molly focused on the snarled traffic while Patty sat beside him in the back seat, her body tense, her expression frightened. Gabe knew how she felt.

He’d been foolish to think that he could keep this from her. She knew him too well.

He’d expected her to demand answers as soon as they’d closed the truck’s doors, but she hadn’t. He wondered if she was as afraid to ask as he was to explain.

Trying to redirect his own anxiety so that he didn’t feed Patty’s, Gabe sniffed, his nose detecting an earthy odor beneath the onion and garlic of Patty’s chef’s uniform. He sniffed again and concentrated.

Molly caught his eye in the rearview and smirked. “Horses.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re smelling horses. My saddle, mainly. I usually keep it on the back seat.”

Patty had been leaning against the headrest, eyes closed. But at the word

“horses,” she opened them. “You have a horse?”

Molly nodded. “We have two, my sister and I. We grew up on a farm and rode nearly every day. When we moved here, we brought our girls with us.”

“A farm where?” Patty asked, and Gabe was grateful to Molly for the distraction. His cousin wasn’t a nervous sort, but she was scared shitless right now and he couldn’t blame her.

“Western North Carolina, near Hickory. My family lived there until recently.” There was a slight catch in her voice, but Molly cleared her throat and went on. “My dad died three years ago, and we moved to New Orleans afterward.”

Her father, who’d been murdered and maybe even framed. Like Dad was.

There was a story there. Gabe could look it up right now for an even bigger distraction, but Patty was hanging on Molly’s every word and, he could admit to himself, so was he.

It wasn’t Molly’s words, really. She had a soothing tone. He could imagine her using it to quiet a nervous horse.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Patty said with genuine regret. “What about your mother?”

“She died about ten years ago. I miss her every day. She was the heart of our family.”

“My mother is, too. She’s a huge part of my life.” Patty patted Gabe’s upper arm. “Of our lives.”

Because he was alone now, his parents gone. The fear he’d felt while leaving the Choux was still present, but it was now mixed with both sadness at his loss and comfort in the knowledge that he was still part of Patty’s family. He’d never truly be alone.

“It’s just me and my sister now,” Molly offered, as if sensing his mood.

“And my niece.”

“And she rides, too?” Patty asked.

Molly chuckled. “She could ride almost before she could walk. She’s a natural.”

Patty leaned forward. “What kind of horses?”

“Ginger is a mustang. We adopted her from the Bureau of Land Management after one of their sweeps. They auction off the horses every year. She’s my sister’s horse. My Shelley is a quarter horse. She’s old now— nearly twenty—but we used to do barrel racing when we were both much younger.”

“I’ve seen that on TV,” Patty said enthusiastically. She talked on and on, becoming less tense with every moment.

Not so Molly. Her tension was barely detectable, and he wouldn’t have noticed had he not been watching her so intently. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel, her jaw going tight. She flicked a glance in the rearview, but not to look at them. She was looking behind them, a sense of alertness charging the air around her.

Patty kept chatting, not seeming to notice, and Gabe didn’t want to scare her by twisting in his seat. He slid to the left a little, peering into the side mirror on the driver’s side.

All he saw was the slow-moving traffic that plagued the Quarter every week of the summer. It was festival season and this weekend was one of the big ones—the Satchmo SummerFest. There’d soon be music and crowds and busy, busy shifts at the Choux.

He’d picked a terrible time to take off. Patty should hate him.

But she wouldn’t, because Patty was the most generous soul on the planet.

And, clearly, still as horse crazy as she’d been as a teenage girl.

Molly was telling her about the riding lessons offered at the stable where she and her sister boarded, and Patty was making plans to go for a ride.

Which she wouldn’t follow through on, of course. Not that Patty wouldn’t want to, but the two of them spent nearly all of their waking hours at the Choux.

Maybe that needed to change. When this was over, he’d insist on Patty taking some time—

He sucked in a breath when Molly abruptly turned into an alley. “Sorry, folks,” she said cheerfully over the cacophony of car horns protesting the sudden move. But she checked the rearview several times as they drove the length of the alley. “This is a shortcut out of all that traffic.”

Shortcut my ass, Gabe thought, as his breath stuttered in his lungs.

Someone had been following them. That was why she’d been so alert. She still was.

Patty realized it, too, her chatter ceasing. She twisted to look behind them.

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know,” Molly said, not even trying to sugarcoat it. “Maybe no one, but I’m going to be excessively careful with you two.”

“Tell me now,” Patty hissed, turning to Gabe. “I really don’t want to know about any of this, but I also don’t want to draw it out any longer. So tell me now.”

Gabe pinched the bridge of his nose. Then told her everything—the intentionally botched investigation, the cocaine that had been planted in his father’s house, the threat delivered by his father’s old captain, and the results of the private autopsy.

Patty was pale and shaken by the time he was finished. And Molly had been taking a most circuitous route back to her office, going around a block, then forward a few streets before going around another block—over and over again. Either she was giving them time to talk or trying to lose their tail. Or both.

“And you kept this nastiness all to yourself?” Patty demanded. “Gabriel Hebert, how could you?”

He shrugged, shame and fear thrashing in his chest. “I didn’t want to believe it, either way. Either Dad killed himself or he was murdered and framed. Neither option was one I wanted to consider. And if I told you, it would be real.”

Patty sighed. “Dammit, Gabe. I wish you’d told me. I would have helped you somehow.”

He appreciated the sentiment but doubted she would have been able to help no matter how much she wanted to try. “There wasn’t anything you could have done.”

There was a moment of silence between them, which Molly broke with a quiet question. “Did you notice anything odd about Rocky’s behavior before he died, Patty?”

“He was upset,” she said. “And worried about something. And talking to his attorney.”

Gabe turned to her, surprised. “About what?”

“I only caught the end of one conversation. He’d come to the Choux for lunch, and I’d gone out the back door to . . . well, to take a break.”

“A smoking break,” Molly supplied.

Patty shot Gabe a sharp glare when he opened his mouth to chide her.

“Yes, I was smoking,” she snapped. “But last I looked I was a grown-up and you can’t snitch to Mama.” Her glare faded. “This was about two weeks before he died. Your dad was in the alley, on his cell phone, talking about a trust. When he saw me there, he ended the call. Asked me what I’d heard. I told him that I hadn’t heard anything. He just harrumphed and went back inside.”

Gabe was stunned. “A trust?” There hadn’t been any such thing in the papers his father’s lawyer had given him after the memorial service. “What kind of a trust?”

Patty closed her eyes, her lips pursing as she considered. “A trust for

‘X,’ ” she said slowly. “That’s what he said.” She opened her eyes. “I don’t remember any more.”

“What is ‘X’?” Molly asked.

“Hell if I know.” Gabe’s heart began to pound so hard that the sound of his own pulse filled his ears. “I need to pay a visit to Dad’s lawyer.”

“We,” Molly corrected. “You don’t go anywhere without me.”

Terror for his cousin’s safety gained new intensity. “What about Patty?

She wasn’t supposed to be involved. Nobody in my family was supposed to be involved.” He rubbed his temples. This was what he’d been afraid of. “But that was never going to work, was it? Whoever killed my dad won’t want me investigating. Nobody I love is safe.”

“This isn’t your fault,” Patty insisted. “And maybe we’re overreacting.

Maybe none of us are in danger.”

Gabe just shook his head. He’d seen what his father’s killer had done to him. He couldn’t take the risk that the bastard would come after the family he had left. “How can I keep them safe, Molly?”

“We’ll talk to Burke.” Molly’s voice was calm. “I’m sure he’ll have a plan.”