Although she’d never said so, Marina had always thought Halcyon was doing it all wrong. But here she sat, staring at the hem of her used-and-not-by-her nightie, with five thousand dollars and an old Honda Accord to her name, and she realized that life held no guarantees. Especially when you’d pinned your security on someone else. Maybe Halcyon hadn’t been completely wrong when she’d decided to put herself first.

Maybe it was something Marina needed to learn to do.

Chapter Four

Adelaide Blanchard hurried down the sidewalk, brushing cat hair from her blouse. As the town’s official old maid, Adelaide found it in keeping that she should always have a cat—or eight—around her place. It gave her something to do and everyone else something to talk about. Plus, the constant layer of cat hair covering all her furniture cut down on drop-by visitors. Visitors, in general, were the bane of her existence, but drop-by visitors had a special place in hell.

Normally, Adelaide spent Saturday morning in her garden. She’d never managed to grow anything worthwhile, but Southern women couldn’t shirk their duty. Any Southern woman worth her salt spent at least one day a week digging around in the dirt. So far this year, Adelaide had managed to wipe out tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, and a peach tree. Technically, she’d run over the peach tree with her car, so it wasn’t a legitimate kill, but she was still counting it.

Instead of wearing her normal Saturday outfit of comfortable jeans and rubber boots, Adelaide had on her “good” black slacks, Hush Puppies, and a bright red blouse—the one considered too racy for church—and she was walking down Main Street. There were goings-on in Last Chance, and not the good kind. Normally, Adelaide loved juicy gossip and sordid tales of woe, but not when the fallout was on someone she liked. Since the people she liked were a short list, she didn’t find herself in this state of concern often, but this time was different. She had to find out if the rumors were true, which meant visiting the one place Adelaide tried to avoid.

The beauty salon.

She stepped into the Cut & Curl and gave the owner, Patricia Martin, a wave before casting a suspicious glance at Dottie Prejean. The wife of the former mayor—God rest his soul—was the closest thing Last Chance had to royalty, and Adelaide had to admit the old biddy wore it well. No matter the season, time of day, or weather, Dottie looked as if someone had just varnished and ironed her. Not a hair out of place. Clothes that didn’t wrinkle. Adelaide was convinced it was some form of sorcery.

And since Adelaide was also certain that Dottie had just been to her regular stylist in New Orleans earlier that week, she knew good and well that Her Highness was in the shop today for the same reason Adelaide was. Normally Adelaide would have been put out that Dottie had beaten her to the punch, but this time was different. This time it wasn’t about getting a juicy piece of gossip that she could carry to church on Sunday. This was about making sure a good woman like Marina Trahan wasn’t handed a raw deal. On that, she and Dottie could agree.