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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.”
