Plunder: A Faye Longchamp Mystery #7 (Faye Longchamp Series) by Mary Anna Evans

her a perfect view down the hill between the cabin and the scene unfolding on the houseboat’s deck.
If Faye hadn’t been so worried about her husband, she’d have been fascinated by the body language on display. Joe had stepped into the stranger’s personal space and was looking down at him, silently making the point that, though they were both very large men, Joe had the advantage of height and reach.
Miranda, taking advantage of Joe’s presence, took a step forward as Faye watched. She was still brandishing the skillet. Faye could see her shaking her head slowly back and forth, her lips moving constantly.
Faye gave the stranger credit for guts. He didn’t back down, not even when faced with Joe at his scariest or Miranda at her craziest. He did finally flinch, but not until two more players joined the home team.
Amande’s Aunt Didi didn’t carry a single ounce of extra flesh, yet the sun behind her revealed a remarkably curvy silhouette. Her hair, as dark as Joe’s, was cropped into a wispy gamine shape. As Amande had predicted, she lingered just outside the doorway, far out of reach of fists and frying pans. Somehow, she managed to look like Miranda and be beautiful at the same time.
A small, wiry man pushed past Didi and stepped outside. His profile, stance, bone structure…everything said that he was Miranda’s son. He looked fortyish, but Didi looked much younger. Early twenties, maybe. Amande had said that she and Didi had shared a room until fairly recently.
Faye tried to do the math. “The man’s just your uncle by marriage, like Hebert. Right? And what about the woman?”
“Yeah. Tebo and Hebert were my mother’s older stepbrothers. Uncle Tebo is a lowlife, but not as much of a lowlife as his brother Hebert, since Grandmère still speaks to him now and then. I’ve met him maybe four times. Didi was the only child she and my grandfather had together—so that makes her and my mother half-sisters, because they had the same dad. Is there such a thing as a half-aunt?”
Faye shrugged her shoulders. “I think so. But I don’t think you can go to the drugstore and buy cards that say, “Happy birthday to my favorite half-aunt!”
“My family is such a mess. Even Grandmère isn’t really related to me. She’s my step-grandmother. Anyway, I’m actually blood-kin to Didi, if that’s what you were asking. Other than my mother, and I don’t count her since I don’t even remember when she left, Didi’s the only blood-kin I’ve got. Well, there’s my father, but if anybody knows who he is, they’re not telling me.”
Faye nodded, more concerned about Joe’s safety than Amande’s complicated family tree. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and stared at the screen. It had only been a few minutes since her 911 call.
Amande said, “I wish the sheriff would send somebody quick.”
Faye was thinking the same thing.
***
Joe was slowly figuring out the cast of characters surrounding Miranda, just by listening to them yell at each other. The skinny girl wearing short hair and shorter shorts was named Didi, because he’d just heard Miranda holler, “Shut up, Didi!” The seedy-looking middle-aged man had responded with, “Settle down, Mother,” so he was apparently one of Miranda’s older children. Miranda had then barked, “Shut up, Tebo!’ so now Joe knew his name, too.
The dangerous-looking stranger was the wild card. As best Joe could tell, none of the others knew who he was.
“Justine left everything to me. All of it. Her share of the boat, her father’s stock, money…whatever you’ve got that belonged to Justine is mine now.” He stuck a sheaf of legal-sized paperwork in Miranda’s face and shook it. “You take care of this boat. You may be living in it now, but it’s mine when you croak.”
“Hardly,” Didi said, taking a step out the door.
She struck a pose, one bare knee bent so that her hip cocked alluringly. It was possible that she didn’t even know she was doing it. Joe