know the Garden Club asked me to join them? It seems they're aching to get their green thumbs on some of those old-fashioned roses out at the school."
That topic wasn't as irrelevant as it sounded. The Garden Club was an old Southern tradition. It included the wives of some of the richest and most influential men in town. Maya benevolently refrained from grinning as Katherine absorbed that blow. Maybe she would learn how to fight back from a position of power. It sure beat running.
"You don't own that property," Katherine warned. "The lease can still be challenged. And if Axell's not careful, he could be too busy with the ABC board to care." She slammed out with a violent tinkling of chimes.
Well, two points to the lady in the red suit—she'd hit the school and Axell's major weak spots. Maya glanced at the tarot layout and frowned. She wished she was a little better at actually reading the cards instead of playing with people's minds. She didn't like the looks of that Death card in Katherine's pack. Generally, it meant some form of transformation, not something so literal as death. But she very definitely did not like the threat in the lady's voice. Did Axell's kindnesses have a cost—her school for his license?
* * *
"You look like you need a drink, honey," the woman at the bar murmured as she leaned over and pushed a glass toward Axell, bending just enough to expose an astounding expanse of cleavage for his benefit.
Her heavy perfume soaked his senses more than a bottle of rum. Fascinated by the deep shadow between the heavy platform of her breasts, Axell wondered how she held up all that weight. Without thinking, he sipped the drink she shoved at him. He sputtered and almost spat out the whiskey. Knowing his preferences, Maya always handed him water.
The perfume and the whiskey and thoughts of Maya stirred baser interests, and Axell shifted uncomfortably on the stool. The woman beside him could pull local political strings, and he'd thought it circumspect to garner her interest, but not this kind of interest. He frowned at the blood red fingernails tapping the sleeve of his suit. Maya had said he didn't notice women, but there was a reason for that. He didn't want to get involved.
He pushed her hand away and stood up. "My wife's waiting and I have to go."
He liked the freedom that one little sentence offered. The minute some barracuda closed in for the kill, he could wave Maya like a harpoon. They didn't have to know she was harmless.
Almost harmless. She had the power to stir sexual images he'd thought he'd left behind with adolescence, but Axell figured that was a result of prolonged abstinence. He rather enjoyed idling a spare minute or three conjuring up the moment when he confirmed his memory that she was a natural redhead.
He hadn't found the perfect opportunity yet. He was always home late and didn't want to disturb her or the kids by trespassing on their side of the house. Maybe he should hire a sitter and take Maya out on a formal date of some sort. Constance would probably hunt them down afterward, but his bedroom door had locks. He'd have to figure out how to know when Maya was ready. He hated trying to read a woman's mind. Had he missed her signals already?
Thinking the evening was fairly quiet and maybe he could escape early, Axell sighed in frustration as Headley strode through the restaurant's front door, looking primed for bear. He thought the damned man had decided to retire, but he knew that look. The metropolis of Wadeville had just suffered a newsworthy act of violence.
Axell didn't try to hide as Headley stalked toward him. The old man was as close to a father figure as he'd had since his own father had died. He cleared a stool at the end of the bar and Headley signaled the bartender for his usual.
"I don't suppose I can be so lucky as to hope Katherine murdered the mayor?" Axell inquired facetiously as the reporter threw back his requested drink.
The older man turned his shaggy white head and glared at him. "Almost as good. Old Man Pfeiffer died tonight. The coroner doesn't think it was from natural causes."
Pfeiffer. Maya's landlord. The school would now be owned by a motley lot of scattered relatives who would all demand its sale.
The cops wouldn't have to look far for motives for murder. The problem