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Missy's eyes moved to the agents, and for one heartbeat something cold flashed behind them, quick as a snake in dark water. Then the grief returned.

"This is your father's funeral. Whatever lies these people have told you..."

"Mrs. Langley." Agent Dupree stepped forward. "Your husband's body was released to the coroner on Monday at the request of his daughter. The toxicology report came back last night. He was poisoned, slowly, over about three weeks."

A gasp went up from the pews. Missy pressed a gloved hand to her chest.

"That's impossible. Carter had a virus. Alden Pryce examined him himself."

"Dr. Pryce is in custody," Dupree said. "He told us everything, including the date you told him to put on that letter."

"Then he's lying to save himself." Missy turned to the pews, to the faces of her friends, her voice rising with exactly the right tremble. "You all know me. I nursed that man day and night. I brought him his tea with my own hands."

"Yes, ma'am, you surely did," Margie said from the aisle, and held up the plastic bag with the amber bottle inside. "Every afternoon at four."

The color drained from Missy's face. Tinley stepped up beside Aurora and opened a folder.

"One and a half million dollars from Vance Meridian to Thibodeaux Interiors, of which you are the only member. Three hundred and twelve client letters with Carter's forged signature, dated six days after his doctor said he could no longer sign anything. A forged board resignation recommending Lawrence Beauvois's cousin-in-law for the Crescent Gulf board."

In the fifth row, Lawrence rose and began edging toward the side aisle, where Kev was already waiting with his arms folded.

"And a Delaware trust buying Carter's bank shares that traces straight back to the man trying to sneak out the side."

"Carter agreed to all of it," Missy snapped. "I had his power of attorney. Everything I did was legal."

Hollis Marchand rose from the third pew.

"No, Missy. Carter revoked that power of attorney on the first night you poisoned him, and he signed a new will." He unfolded it. "I'll spare everyone the legal language. Langley Capital. His shares in Crescent Gulf Bancorp and the board seat that goes with them. The lake house. His accounts. Every last thing he owned goes to Aurora Langley Lyons. To you, Missy, he left nothing at all."

"The sale to Vance Meridian is void," Tinley said. "Vance's lawyers withdrew yesterday, the minute the SEC called. Whitney Boudreaux has informed the Crescent Gulf board that there is no vacancy and no Mr. Theriot. The sale was illegal. It will never happen. It all belongs to Aurora."

Missy looked at her daughter as though seeing her for the first time.

"You," she breathed. "You did this to me."

"No, Mother. You did this." Aurora let go of Jethro's hand and stepped close enough to smell the Chanel. Her voice was quiet and steady, and it carried to every corner of the cathedral.

"Hiro found the other wires too. The ones from three years ago, from your account to a man overseas who was paid to make sure a cannery door wouldn't open. The letter to the newspaper stating an American heiress was in the region doing good work.

“You wanted me dead before I could marry anyone you hadn't chosen, so you could keep my trust. Five of my friends were in that building. Five people who never came home because of you. I will spend every dollar Daddy left me to see you charged as an accessory in every one of their deaths, as well as the deaths of my friends in that hut overseas. That is my promise, and unlike you, I keep mine."

Agent Dupree took the handcuffs from her belt.

"Missy Langley, you're under arrest for the murder of Carter Langley, for wire fraud, forgery, securities fraud, and conspiracy." Two agents moved toward the side aisle, where Kev had Lawrence Beauvois by the collar, and a third was already walking Dustin Morgan out from behind his pillar.

The cuffs closed around Missy's wrists with a sound like a door locking. And the polished woman who had ruled the ballrooms of New Orleans for thirty years came apart in front of all of them.

"You were supposed to burn!" she screamed as they pulled her down the aisle. "Do you hear me? You were supposed to burn in that filthy place with the rest of them! I made you! Every penny you have is mine!" She twisted toward the casket.

"And you, you spineless fool! Thirty-four years I carried you! I hope you rot! I hope you all rot!" Her veil had torn loose, and her hair had come down, and she was laughing now, a high, terrible sound that rang off the gilded ceiling. "I am a Thibodeaux! You'll all be begging at my door by Christmas! I curse you! I curse this whole damned family down to the last child!"

The great doors closed behind her, and her voice went on out on the steps above Jackson Square until a car door slammed and there was only silence.

Aurora walked to her father's casket and laid her hand flat on the polished wood. She thought about a red plastic fire helmet and the azaleas, and about a man who had known exactly what was in his cup and drank it anyway, and who, in the last nights of his life, had finally done one thing right.

"Goodbye, Daddy," she whispered.

Jethro's hand found hers, warm and rough and steady. She laced her fingers through his, and the old families of New Orleans watched in silence as Aurora Langley Lyons walked back up the aisle with her husband beside her and the Shadow Warriors at her back, out of the darkness and into the bright October morning, finally and completely free.