Chaos in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law Mystery/Romance Series) by Jana DeLeon Page A

well.
    “Yes, it is. I look forward to your reports.” She gathered her purse and exited the office.  
    Taylor watched as she walked past the front window on the sidewalk. She’d implied that she’d taken the case in order to give Sophia closure, but that wasn’t really the case. The reality was that something about Sophia and her story set off a tingling feeling in the bottom of her belly. A feeling that she’d learned the hard way not to ignore.  
      Something important was going to happen, and this case was the beginning of it.
    ###
    Jadyn was just about to climb into her Jeep when she heard Helena’s voice behind her.
    “I can’t believe you gave the popcorn back to that woman,” she complained.
    Jadyn glanced around to make sure no one was standing close enough to hear and pointed to the passenger’s seat. “Get in. I’m not going to stand around Main Street talking to thin air.”
    “I’m not thin air.”
    “Don’t I know it, but since no one else can see you, that’s exactly what it would look like I’m doing. In the Jeep. Now. I need to talk to you.”
    “Fine, fine. Jesus, you’re getting as bitchy as Maryse and Mildred.”
    “I wonder why.”
    Helena rolled her eyes and hefted herself into the passenger’s seat. Jadyn backed up and pulled away. As soon as they’d driven out of downtown and were on the vacant highway, Jadyn looked over at Helena.
    “I’ve seen you do some pretty bad things, and heard about even worse, but stealing food from a child is an all-time low.”
    “It was just popcorn. She could have bought him another.”
    “You heard that woman. That popcorn was probably the nicest thing she’s done for that boy in the past year.”
    Helena’s belligerent expression shifted to a slightly guilty one. “Okay, so maybe it was mean. But that’s not why I did it. I just really love popcorn, and I wanted something to eat while I watched the fight.”
    “I’m glad you brought that up. Let’s talk about the fight.”
    “Uh-oh.”
    “ Uh-oh is right. What did you do?”
    “How come you always assume I had something to do with it?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you always do?”
    Helena huffed but didn’t have the grounds to argue. “Can I help it if the people in this town make me so angry I want to slap them? I suppose I could have popped both those old biddies in the mouth with a wet towel, but wouldn’t that have been a bigger problem?”
    “Even if you were alive and visible, you can’t just go around popping people in the mouth because you don’t like something they say. Otherwise, you’d spend an enormous amount of time hitting people and then even longer sitting in jail.”  
    Jadyn knew everything she said was probably going in one ear and out the other, but she felt a little guilty that she’d been the one to send Helena to the beauty shop in the first place. And now, God help her, she really wanted to know what the women said that set Helena off.  
    “What did they say?” she asked finally.
    Helena was staring straight out the windshield, arms across her chest, and wearing her almost permanent pout.  
    “Helena?” Jadyn said.
    “What? Oh, they were talking crap. Maryse came out of the hotel and walked past the shop. Millicent said as how she didn’t know what a man as handsome as Luc saw in a tomboy like Maryse. Said it looked like she cut her hair with nail clippers.”
    The implication that Maryse wasn’t good enough for Luc definitely got Jadyn’s back up, but as she’d watched Maryse do exactly what Millicent suggested just last week, she couldn’t work up indignation over the hair comment.  
    “Okay,” Jadyn said, “I agree that was rude and would have made me mad too.”
    “Oh, it didn’t stop there. The other bitch said apparently you’d gotten all the looks in the family but it didn’t do any good as you seemed content to tromp around the bayou in men’s clothes and wear your hair in a ponytail like a