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Ridiculous No one was putting blaed Or maybe they were

The canned video was replaced by the reporter again, the pretty woe It was the hardness of a wo to do just about anything to do so She’d sleep with the boss while erous territory before setting her pretty face in front of the camera She’d sleep with the producer He knew that look He’d seen it often enough in the business world With men, it just meant that they’d stab you in the back; with a wo

The reporter’s face was replaced again by the iled in the shot, froal, Marshall Donegal and Ashley Donegal

Ah, and it seeenerations had taken DNA frorandfather, and like Eal All these decades later

The newscast ended

He should have felt satisfied He’d caused the havoc he wanted They were never going to catch him; there was just no way to prove that he had done any of this

But then the newscast changed; there was a "this just in!" alert

The reporter caain and announced that police believed that they had the murder weapon, an historic Enfield rifle once owned by the Civil War al Tests were being done by forensic experts, seeking proof that the weapon, pulled from the Mississippi, had indeed been used in the ht on the investigation, bringing news about the heinous events at the plantation the second they became available

He clicked off the television, startled

The weapon shouldn’t have been found so quickly He had left no traces; he had ditched the da in the Mississippi River, and he had been careful in every possible forensic way

He paced, trying to calm down, and he did

They had the weapon Even if they found old Charles’s blood, they could never trace it to hiotten there and killed the e must have been so brilliant, the dead al’s uniforhost stories were endless…

He sat down again It wasn’t enough It wasn’t going to really choke the life out of the place

So…

They’d be watching the ce the river

There was always the bayou, and before you reached the bayou fro way to marshland…

"‘It is well that war is so terrible--lest we should grow too fond of it,’" he whispered aloud, quoting Robert E Lee, the South’s--no, the country’s--greatest general

He smiled, his faith in hi is so co!" he said

The killing was the best

8

The Enfield and bayonet had been turned over to the forensics lab, and there was nothing to do on that angle but wait--and, deterone frolass-encased place of honor in a suarded such precious pieces into the hands of a murderer, and then into the river

Frazier was horrified Of course, it had never been locked up They didn’t lock up their artifacts at Donegal Plantation Marshall Donegal had been buried with his dress sword, but not the Enfield rifle he would have carried into the war At his death, Emma had kept the weapon above the fireplace in the rear parlor, should they coain at any time It was most likely that she kept it there until her death in 1890 One of her children had probably moved the rifle and other artifacts from the mid-1860s to the attic Frazier knew that his father had been the one to purchase the box it had been displayed in now No one had even known it was ; when they all returned to the house, he asked Ashley a dozen times at least if she was sure that the weapon they had found had been Marshall Donegal’s, and he had gone upstairs himself to assure himself that the box was empty

It was

The reality of the Mississippi River was that it was not the nicest place in the world to dive; returning to the house--once the initial questions were asked and answered--Jake hurried up to his rooht into the shower He was sure the others were doing the same But he had barely stripped out of his swim trunks when there was a knock at the door He frowned, wrapped a towel around his waist and went to it He opened it a crack

Ashley was out there She had stripped off her dive suit and wore a terry robe over her bathing suit Her hair was still daled from the water, but she looked restless and uneasy

He opened the door fully without ?" he asked

She looked at hie sapphire eyes It was suddenly impossible--despite the five years that had passed since they’d been together--not to feel an uncomfortable rise of his libido

God, he’d loved her, always Not true, he tried to correct hi little precocious kid But not long; she’d caught up so quickly And when he had realized that he’d teased her the sairls they had secretly coveted since the be ginning of time, he had just fallen head over heels It was the sapphire of her eyes, litter in the color of her hair Ah, but that was just lust He’d loved her toh, and argue her side of any matter It was the sound of her voice…