Angelique stiffened. “I’m well over him. I learned all I needed to know about men from him. Anyway, ring me up, sis. It’s time I get moving to the grocery store.”
The last thing she wanted to do was hang around here and talk about the man who had broken her heart into a million pieces. It was true, she was over him. She just didn’t want to allow any man to ever get that close to her again.
A few minutes later she left the shop and headed to her car. She placed the new caftan on her passenger seat and then drove to the grocery store down the block. Howard’s Grocery wasn’t a huge place, but it was the only grocer in town. Howard Griffinwas a big, affable man, who often greeted the shoppers who came in.
“Afternoon, Miss Santori,” he said as she walked in.
“Good afternoon to you, Mr. Griffin,” she replied.
“Now, I’ve told you at least a dozen times to call me Howard. I don’t stand on formalities around here.”
“Then Howard it is,” she said with a smile. “And you can call me Angelique.”
He grabbed her a cart and pushed it toward her. “Let me know if you can’t find something, Angelique,” he said. “If I don’t have what you need, then I’ll order it and I’ll have it for you next time you come in.”
“Thank you, Howard.” She grabbed hold of the basket and pushed it toward the produce section. She needed to grab a few things in order to make coleslaw, which always went well with fish. She also planned to make mac and cheese from scratch. And if she got really ambitious, she’d make some skillet corn bread to round out the meal.
She found herself looking forward to the evening. It was true, she liked what she knew about Daniel and she was looking forward to getting to know him even more. Then there was the crazy physical attraction she felt toward him. It burned hot inside her.
“Angelique.” She turned at the sound of her name coming from someplace behind her. She smiled as she saw Marianne Lutgen approaching her.
“Hi, Marianne,” she greeted the plump, brown-haired woman. Marianne had grown up in the swamp and she and Angelique had often played together as children. However, they’d grown apart during their teen years.
“I wanted to tell you that I’m having a little gathering tonight at my place, and as usual, I’d love for you to come,” Marianne said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Marianne, I won’t be able to make it. I have other plans for the evening, but thank you for the invitation,” Angelique replied.
“You’re never available when I invite you to do anything. You never come to my parties.” Marianne’s lower lip jutted out in a pout. “Do you think you’re better than me and my friends?”
“Of course not,” Angelique replied, appalled that Marianne would even think that about her. “Again, I’m sorry, but my life has been so busy, especially lately.”
“Did you know I came to see your mother once?” Marianne said.
“No, I didn’t know that,” Angelique replied with a bit of surprise.
Marianne grabbed a can of corn from the nearby shelf and tossed it into her basket, then looked at Angelique once again. “I went to see her because I wanted her to do a spell or something that would make me lose some weight.”
“I hope she was helpful to you.”
“She wasn’t,” Marianne said flatly. “She told me that if I really wanted to lose weight then I should stop eating so much.” Marianne released a deep sigh. “Anyway, I just wanted to tell you about the party tonight. Maybe next time you’ll be able to come.”
“We’ll see,” Angelique replied. “In any case it was nice seeing you again, Marianne.”
A few minutes later Angelique finished up her shopping, paid and then loaded the groceries into her trunk. It was on her way home when she thought about the brief conversation with Marianne once again.
There were a couple of reasons why Angelique never went to the parties that Marianne hosted. The first reason was because Marianne ran with a rough crowd. The second reason was Angelique had heard that old man Walt Boudreaux brought jugsof his moonshine to the parties and everyone imbibed freely. Angelique had no desire to spend an evening with a bunch of drunks.
Still, the conversation with Marianne played and replayed in her head because of that moment when she’d said that Angelique’s mother hadn’t helped her. There had been something hard glowing in the depths of Marianne’s eyes. It was there for only a minute and then gone.
Was it possible her mother had been murdered by a woman? So far, the investigation had been focused mostly on men. Marianne was a big woman. She would have been capable of overwhelming the much-smaller Mystique.
Or could it have been Marianne who had broken into the shanty and come after Angelique with a knife? Was the woman really that offended that Angelique never went to her parties? She didn’t know what to think anymore, but her brain was certainly working overtime.
She would definitely share with Daniel the conversation she’d had with Marianne. Were there other women they might be overlooking? The crime had been so heinous it was hard for her to imagine a woman being capable of it. But she knew women could be evil killers. She saw stories about women killers all the time on the news.
She pulled into her usual parking space just outside the swamp’s entrance and then got out of the car. She picked up the bag with the caftan inside and then got the two small shopping bags out of the trunk of her car. She looped the bags over her left hand so she could carry her knife with her right hand.
Since the night of the attack on her, she never went out without the knife. It wasn’t much, but in the event of another unexpected assault, it might make the difference between life and death.
