The Setup Read Free Page A

miss it.” She paused. “How many reunions can you go to before people start dying?”
    At sixteen, Emily thought everyone over the age of twenty-five was old. He knew that, but still, he had to admit he didn’t exactly like the thought that his daughter was beginning to view him as having one foot in the grave.
    There was a simple way to counteract that. He could act like a younger man.
    Easier said than done.
    Jefferson looked at her for a moment, then indicated the phone. “I don’t like you two going behind my back this way.”
    “We wouldn’t have to if you were more agreeable.” Blake’s voice rose in defense of their actions. “Emily and I only have your best interests at heart, Jeff. Right, Emily?”
    “Right,” she agreed heartily, then looked at her father. “Please, Dad? Please go to this reunion. Please see this lady that Uncle Blake found for you.”
    She blinked once, staring up at him with eyes that he could never resist, never truly say no to. When it came to Emily, he was a pushover.
    With a sigh, Jefferson nodded. “All right, you win. I’ll go.”
    He began to bend over to fish the invitation out of the garbage, where he had thrown it last night after tearing it in several pieces to ensure that it wouldn’t reappear on his desk.
    With a grin, Emily blocked his effort, pointing to the desk. When he moved toward it, he saw the invitation lying there again, taped together like a badly wounded war veteran. A war veteran now on the mend, with every hope of making a full recovery.
    Picking the invitation up, Jefferson shook his head and then smiled. “I guess if you’re this determined to see me go to this reunion, it’s the least I can do.”
    Overjoyed, Emily threw her arms around his neck as Blake, overhearing, shouted, “Good man, Jefferson!”

CHAPTER TWO
    A T THIRTY-FIVE, VIBRANT , redheaded Sylvie Marchand had an incredible zest for life. At one time a budding artist with considerable promise, she’d been around the block more than once. That block had led her to places like New York, Los Angeles and Paris, and along the way to several passionate, satisfying, relatively long-term relationships. The last of which, with a fading rock musician named Shane Alexander of the now defunct rock group Lynx, had actually been less satisfying than torrid and brief.
    But it was this last relationship that had yielded her greatest treasure and joy in life: her three-year-old daughter, Daisy Rose.
    Far from souring or jading her, the events of those earlier years had just made the third of Anne and Remy Marchand’s four daughters aware that life had to be grabbed with both hands and, above all, savored. Those same events had also taught her what they’d taught Dorothy of Oz fame: there was no place like home. And family, if you were lucky enough to have one, should always come first.
    Which explained why Sylvie now found herselfback in New Orleans after all this time. She had returned home a year ago to run the art gallery that was attached to her family’s hotel, and she and her oldest sister, Charlotte, who was now general manager of the Hotel Marchand, had been here when their mother, Anne, suffered a heart attack four months ago.
    The event had all but floored Sylvie, bringing the glaring truth of mortality to her doorstep. Her beloved father, Remy, had died all too young, in a tragic car accident four years ago at the age of 61. That had been difficult enough to weather, but Sylvie had never thought that anything could happen to her mother.
    Anne Robichaux Marchand had always been an unstoppable force in Sylvie and her sisters’ lives. Years ago, Anne and Remy had been in the right place at the right time and taken over a hotel whose owner had fallen on hard times. The hotel, which they’d renamed Hotel Marchand, was actually the successful marriage of four town houses. With Anne’s guidance and Remy’s culinary abilities, the hotel became a four-star establishment. Tucked away just east