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A Grave Mistake
Stella Cameron
For Julian and Gerry Savoy, proud Cajuns
who answer all those questions.
Laissez les bon temps rouler!
Contents
Prologue
Near Chartres Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1:35 a.m.
His feet were wet.
Shit, why hadn’t he kept his mouth shut back there? Why had he asked for money?
He could still hear it, the jazz in that place, music as old as this town, older, the rhythm thumping, but not as fast or hard as the blood at his temples.
The goons they’d sent after him were too slow to have seen for sure where he’d taken a right off Chartres Street. Deep in a doorway, neon lights laying bright stripes on the soaked street, Pip Sedge couldn’t hold the breaths that burned his lungs, hurt his heart, so he pulled up one side of his suit jacket and plastered it over his face, hoping to muffle any noise.
The rain had all but cleared the late stragglers away.
Maybe he’d lost those two guys. He didn’t hear anyone running, but two hundred and fifty pounds or so of muscle—and fat—apiece had to make the going tough.
Shut the hell up. Shut up! His brain wouldn’t be quiet, it yammered at him, slid into a screaming chorus that went on and on. I’m a dead man. I’m a dead man. I’m a dead man. They would put a bullet in him. Chase him closer to the river, farther and
