Leslie Lafoy Read Online Free

surprises. Which meant that she needed to use them while she could.
    “I have half the map?” he said, his voice a bit strained. He cleared his throat before adding more firmly, “What makes you think that?”
    “Mignon liked to appear important,” Isabella supplied, relaxing as she headed into the end of the tale, certain that she’d made the right choice in sharing it with him. “Within hours of being handed our respective halves of the map, all of New Orleans and half of Louisiana knew of it. There were two attempts to steal my half of the map. Three to steal Mignon’s.”
    He hesitated, slowly cocking a brow. “Do you have any idea by whom?”
    “The list of possible thieves is endless.” She finished her coffee and set the cup and saucer on his desk. Settling back in the chair, she folded her hands in her lap and met his gaze squarely. “It has, however, been narrowed to someone with the financial resources required to follow us here. After I identified Mignon’s body yesterday evening, I went to her lodgings. They’d been ransacked. Whoever attempted to steal her half of the map in New Orleans attempted it again here.”
    “How do you know they didn’t find it?”
    Something in his manner suggested that he already knew the answer and that the question was more a test of her reasoning abilities than anything else. “Mignon was killed the night before last,” she replied confidently. “I went by her lodgings yesterday morning and the landlady let me in to wait. The room and her belongings were in typical Mignon disarray when I arrived and when I left. It was after her death and after my departure that someone tore things to shreds.”
    “They could have found it.”
    She shook her head and smiled. “Mignon wouldn’t have left it in such an obvious place. And it’s just as apparent that she didn’t have it on her when she was accosted and beaten or it wouldn’t have been necessary to search her lodgings after she died. Which makes it likely that she hid it somewhere, intending to keep it safe for the time being and come back for it later. According to the landlady, the only time she left her rooms the day she died was to dine all three meals in public establishments and to attend a play in the evening.”
    He slowly nodded but didn’t say anything.
    “And,” Isabella went on, “according to the constables, witnesses report that she left the play on your arm, climbed into your carriage, and wasn’t seen again until her bludgeoned body was found in the alleyway behind your house yesterday morning.”
    “Do you have any idea of where she dined that last day?”
    Isabella shook her head. “But it doesn’t matter,” she clarified. “Mignon wouldn’t have hidden the map in a public place. The risk that it might be accidentally lost or discovered would be too great. No. She hid it during the time she spent with you, Mr. Stanbridge. It’s somewhere in your carriage, your house, or on your property.”
    He finished his own coffee and set the cup and saucer aside, saying quietly, “Are you aware that, as a holder of half of the map, you’re in the same grave danger your cousin was?”
    Of course she did and she found it interesting that his mind was tracking along that course. Was it based in something approximating chivalry? Or was it more a natural consequence of his occupation? Private investigators probably focused on the potential danger more than others did. Not that the answer mattered, she reminded herself. By nightfall, he’d be nothing more than another person she’d met along the way and would never encounter again.
    Isabella nodded. “I also know that my best chance of staying alive is to find Mignon’s half as soon as possible so that I stay well ahead of whoever it is that killed her.”
    He folded his arms across his chest and crossed his ankles. “Did you come here thinking to hire me to protect you?”
    He did that sort of thing? The possibility had never crossed her mind.