Page 42 of Xavier

They made the rest of the trip back to the marina in silence. Once they secured the skiff and gathered the basket containing the remaining house call packages, they walked along the dock to the parking lot.

Xavier held the passenger door to his pickup open for her to climb aboard. “Are you going to make any more house calls this evening?”

“I am,” she said with a grimace. “I need to get to the rest of the people on the list, let them know what happened at the cemetery and warn them about the hurricane heading our way. You don’t have to go with me.”

“I’m going with you.” When she started to say something, he held up his hand. “It’s nonnegotiable—at least for the next six days.”

“You’re going to get tired of doors slamming in your face.”

“I have thick skin,” he said. “Do you?”

Her pretty lips pressed into a line. “Yes, for as long as I can remember.”

He bet she did. “How did you get involved with the mafia?”

“I was so determined to make it on my own and rely on no one; I even refused my grandmother’s help.” She shrugged. “Both the Cajun mafia and the New Orleans mafia offered easy money and a place where I felt I belonged. After all, I was my mother’s child. Even she couldn’t stand me.”

Xavier heard the resentment in her words. He closed the door and rounded the front of the truck to slide into the driver’s seat. He paused with his hand on the starter. “No judgment, and you can tell me to go fuck myself, but I have one question for you, if you choose to answer.” He glanced her way and waited for her response

Her brow twisted, and one corner of her lip lifted. “After you’ve followed me around all day and witnessed my sterling reputation with everyone we met today, I suppose you deserve to ask something.” She lifted her chin. “Go ahead. Hit me with your best shot.”

He met and held her gaze. “Back then, when it happened, did you want Shelby Taylor dead?”

Chapter 8

Xavier’s question hit Lissette square in the gut. She’d asked herself that question a hundred times since she’d almost killed the town’s favorite sheriff’s deputy.

“That’s one question I choose not to answer at this moment,” she said through tight lips.

He nodded. “Fair enough. You don’t have to.” Xavier started the engine and drove out of the parking lot, heading into the center of town. “Mamba Wamba?”

“Yes, please,” she said, her voice tight, her gaze on the road ahead. Of all the questions he could have asked, why that one?

When he parked the truck in front of Gisele’s shop, Lissette jumped down before he shut off the engine.

She dug in her purse for her keys and opened the front door of the shop. The sun was well on its way down, casting long shadows from the surrounding buildings.

Reaching inside the door, she switched on the light, earning a squawk from Johnny, the macaw, in his cage in the middle of the shop.

You break it, you buy it, asshole, Johnny said.

“Hey, Johnny,” Lissette called as she entered the shop and crossed to where Johnny stood on his perch inside his cage. “Are you hungry?”

Bring me a beer, woman, Johnny responded.

Lissette chuckled. “I’ve a good mind to do that. It might make you less of a dick.”

“I doubt even a beer would help,” Xavier said from the doorway.

“Has he bitten you?”

Xavier stared down at his finger. “Twice.”

Lissette grinned. “Didn’t learn the first time, huh?”

Xavier’s lips twitched. “I guess I thought it was like lightning and wouldn’t strike twice. He drew blood both times.”

Cheeky bastard, Johnny said.