thought she’d get Joan to leave him.
Plus there was the murder mystery. And then there was Samuel. She’d only been with Samuel a few days. She knew deep down in her heart it wasn’t enough.
His fingertips stroked her hair. Despite the circumstances and the location, she felt her body respond to the touch.
“See, thing is…” he said.
She tilted her head to look at him.
“If you were to stay for the music festival…”
“Isn’t that still a few weeks away?”
He nodded. “I thought… I’d appreciate it if you’d play my dad’s fiddle.”
Heather turned and rose up on her elbow, her chest tightening with emotion. She was unbelievably touched by the request. “You want me to stay here? For a few more
“Or you could come back for it.” He shrugged, his focus going to the far wall. “Either would be great.”
Either
“Yes,” she said in a rush, meeting his gaze. “Yes, I’ll play. Yes, I’ll stay.”
His face lit up with a broad smile, and he eased her down to gently kiss her lips.
Even that insubstantial touch left her breathless.
“But you’re going to have to tell me,” she breathed.
“Tell you what?”
“When this thing we’ve got going is over. You’re going to have to tell me. Otherwise, I might hang around for a very, very long time.”
He kissed her again. Longer, deeper, wrapping his arms around her and holding on as if he were never going to let go. It might have been the effects of the codeine, or it might have been some deep emotion.
“Okay by me,” he finally whispered, his voice thick.
AT SAMUEL’S kitchen table, Joan flipped the final page of the final photo album that she and Heather had located in his closets. There were pictures of Samuel at all ages, pictures of his mother, pictures of his father, and pictures of many younger versions of Indigo residents that she recognized.
The older pictures were all from his mother’s family. Some were captioned, showing that they’d emigrated from Mississippi in the early 1900s to settle in Indigo. Other members of her family had then left the town in the Sixties, but Maisie had stayed to marry John Kane. Samuel was their only son.
There were almost no pictures of John as a child, and nothing that showed any members of his family.
“Has Samuel told you much about his father’s family?” she asked Heather.
Heather turned from where she was replacing framed photos on the fireplace hearth. She shook her head. “No. And it’s weird.”
“Weird how?”
Heather glanced guiltily around the cottage. They were alone while Anthony picked Samuel up from the clinic.
“You have to promise not to tell anyone,” she said.
Joan stood up. “Tell them what? You know something?”
“Not about the murder,” said Heather, heading for the stairs. “But, quick, come and look.”
She led Joan up the staircase to Samuel’s bedroom. There, she glanced out the window, then crossed to the closet and took out an old violin case.
She set it on the bed and flipped the catches.
“I don’t understand,” said Joan.
“It belonged to Samuel’s father. He used to play it on the porch.”
Joan stared down at the instrument. It was richly grained and beautifully arched, obviously of very fine quality.
“It’s an Ambrogino,” said Heather in a hushed voice. “And I played it.”
Joan glanced up to see Heather’s eyes shinning with excitement. “You think there was money in his father’s past?”
Heather shook her head. “Samuel doesn’t know. He just remembers his father playing it on the porch.”
“This is an incredibly fine heirloom.” Joan ran her fingers over the classic varnish.
Heather nodded her agreement. “And that’s not all.” She crossed to the closet again and came back with a leather-bound book. “His dad wrote music. Cajun tunes.”
She set the book down next to the case and carefully opened the cover.
The aging paper was impressive, and Joan’s piano training allowed her to read the music. The songs themselves were catchy, but unremarkable.
Joan looked through the pages, picking the fragile paper up by the corners and turning it face down. There was song after song.
“Somebody should copy these,” she mused.
“I’m going to suggest it to Samuel.” There was something in Heather’s tone, a repressed excitement.
“What?” asked Joan.
“Nothing,” said Heather. But it was obvious from her expression that it was something.
“What else do you know?”
Heather shook her head.
Joan squinted at her for a minute, then glanced back down at the book. She turned another page and an old black-and-white photograph dropped out.
She picked it up by the white bordered edge. “What’s this?”
Heather moved closer. “I don’t know. I didn’t see it before.”
Joan squinted in the light at a man holding a baby boy. They were in what was obviously an opulent parlor in, maybe, 1950. The man was white, the child either black or of a mixed heritage.
She flipped the photograph over.
Joan looked at the front again. John’s father? He was white and wealthy and named Gerard?
She peered more closely at the picture, and her stomach felt hollow. “Wow. Oh, wow.”
“What?” asked Heather.
“That’s Gerard Dinose.” Joan’s mind scrambled to work out the significance of John’s parentage. Gerard Dinose must have had an affair with John’s mother, Samuel’s grandmother.
“Who’s Gerard Dinose?” asked Heather.
“The Dinose family owns half the businesses in Lafayette. They started out smuggling rum, then turned to sugarcane-”
“Impressive history lesson,” an unfamiliar male voice drawled.
Joan whirled to see a fiftyish, gray-haired man standing in the bedroom doorway and holding a gun.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HEATHER GRABBED Joan, and Joan automatically put an arm around her sister.
“What do you want?” Joan rasped.
The man sauntered forward. “See, that’s a tough one now.”
Heather tried to back away, but Joan held her ground. She watched the man closely, a weird sense of recognition coming over her. Had they met before?
“You want the violin?” she asked.
The man laughed harashly. “Yeah, right. I went to all this trouble over a stupid violin.”
Heather’s body jerked in reaction, but Joan held her still.
“Who-” Joan’s eyes widened, and her entire body went cold. She glanced at the picture and blinked in disbelief.
