Miles met his prospective client’s gaze.  “You realize, sir, it might get expensive.”

          “That won’t be a problem.  There are things at stake here more important than money.  I’ll be retiring when my Senate term is up, but my son still has a brilliant political future in front of him.  I don’t want it destroyed because of rumor and innuendo.”

          Miles had a suspicion that it was more than that, and he also questioned how brilliant anyone’s future could be who was nicknamed ‘Randy the Dandy,’ but he merely nodded, reaching for his leather portfolio.  “I have a standard contract here.  Why don’t you look it over?  You know how to reach me if you have any questions.  Once it’s signed and the advance is paid, I’ll get right on it.”

          Senator Vaughn Reardon accepted the two-page document Miles held out.  “Good.  Right now this is nothing more than local gossip.  We’re a long way from Washington.  But it’s only a matter of time before the whispers make their way to the Hill.  Plus, I hear there’s a movie deal in the works for cable TV.”

          “I understand.”

          “The troublemaker might not even be a woman,” the Senator conceded.  “But whoever it is, I want them found out and their identity revealed to the media.  They’ll take over from there, hounding them until they can’t call their soul their own.  That’s the best way to strike back, by revealing the secret they wanted kept — their real name.  The whole town feels betrayed by this pack of lies, and once we learn who’s behind this terrible book, their life will be made so miserable by both the press and their neighbors that they’ll have no choice but to leave . . . and never come back.”  He savored the thought with a triumphant smile.

          “I’ll find the culprit for you,” Miles said.  He wanted to say, ‘the varmint,’ because the Senator’s Southern accent was nearly overpowering, but thought better of it.  He also noticed that Vaughn said nothing about filing a defamation lawsuit, which suggested to him that this so-called fiction was more of an exposé.

          “Confident.  That’s the kind of attitude I like to hear.”  Vaughn held out his hand, and Miles shook it.  “I’ll look over your contract, Hadley, and I’ll be in touch with you in the morning.  In the meantime, check out our little town.  See what you can find out.”

          Miles had no intention of being seen in town — at least not yet — but he didn’t want to tell that to the Senator, who seemed like the type to tell everyone how to do their job.  “Yes . . . I’ll do that.  But what makes you so certain that the, uh, troublemaker is a local person?”

          “Because there’ve been no strangers nosing around.  I know my town, Miles.”

          Miles took that to mean that Vaughn had already done some investigating of his own.  It would be easy enough to determine if any strangers were here – the population of Sunbeam, Mississippi numbered just 1,800.  For the nearest chain hotel – he disliked independents, which he referred to as “Bates Motels” – he’d either have to travel south to Clarksdale or north to the gambling mecca of Tunica.  He decided to head north, not because he was a gambler, but because it was closer.

Outside Miles got into the rented vehicle – he’d gotten what the rental agent termed an ‘intermediate’ model, the smallest size that could accommodate his six-one height – and drove north, past cotton and corn fields that stretched as far as his eye could see on both sides of Highway 61.  He felt there was less of a chance of being remembered if he drove a nondescript car rather than his own Altima.  At the rental agency near his home in Memphis he'd specifically requested a car with Mississippi plates rather than Tennessee, which would make it easier for him to blend into the background.  The New York Yankees baseball cap and sunglasses he wore prevented anyone from getting a clear look at him.

          In the four years he'd been a PI, he worked all kinds of cases.  This was one of the more interesting ones.  A novel written under a pseudonym about the secrets of a small Delta town had struck a chord with audiences.  There hadn’t been a book this juicy about the secrets behind small-town life since Peyton Place over fifty years before.  He suspected that even the townspeople the Senator claimed had been so outraged were secretly reading under the covers, courtesy of flashlights, trying to match the real person in town with their fictional counterpart.

          He’d picked up a copy of the book when he got the call from Vaughn’s assistant, and while he’d only read a small portion, it was the kind of gossipy book that made the reader feel they were a fly on the wall, witnessing all the action.  Whoever had written it had a flair for character development.  The Senator was understandably unhappy about the portrayal of a family active in both state and national politics, with a great grandfather, a former governor, who secretly crossed the color line to father a second family out of wedlock and the jagged lines of racial identity that haunted the family to this day.  The governor’s grandson, who became a Senator, promptly gave one of his own twin sons to his black relatives to raise as one of theirs when the boy’s appearance at birth suggested a biracial heritage.  The son he and his wife kept became a congressman, whose numerous dalliances with women of all ethnicities infuriated his father.  No wonder Vaughn wanted the identity of the author.  It was political dynamite for an elected official whose conservative views on race and other matters many perceived as a bastion of the Old South.

          It hardly represented the first scandal involving politicians and mistresses, nor the first novel written anonymously; but it was a bombshell just the same.  Once the Senator learned of the author’s identity and the press began what would undoubtedly be relentless badgering, he’d probably use his considerable power to finish her off, like have her fired from her job and arranging for any family members she might have to become suddenly unemployed as well.

Of course, Miles had no way to know the writer’s gender with absolute certainty, but something in the writing suggested to him the novel had been penned by a woman.  Now that he thought about it, those scorching sex scenes came to mind.  He’d gotten aroused just reading them.

He chuckled.  His first thought was that when he did find the author, he’d like to get to know her a little before turning her over to Reardon.  Her writing suggested that she really knew how to please a man and how to accept pleasure in return.  Of course, the author would probably turn out to be a sixty-year-old grandmother.  Like most people his age, he tended to forget that older people were having sex before he’d even been born.

          He shook his head as he changed the radio station.  Part of him felt sorry for her already, whoever she was.

                             ***

  Olivia carried her lunch tray down the hall.

          “Hello, Miss Kelly!” three children said to her in unison.

She smiled at the youngsters, all former students of hers.  “Hi, kids!”  She turned backward to open the door with her back and entered the teachers lounge of the Hiram Revels Elementary School in Tunica with her tray.  She hesitated near three of her colleagues who sat huddled together, obviously discussing something juicy.  “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

“Of course not, Olivia.  We’re just talking about that new book, Burning Bridges.  There’s a rumor that even though the book is set in a town called Barrington Bridges, that it’s really based on Sunbeam, and that the author is someone who lives there.”  Like Olivia, Regina Hawkins was born and bred in Sunbeam and still lived there.

She placed her tray on the table and pulled out a chair.  “Shawn Lamont?  There’s nobody in the town by that name, is there?”

“Don't be silly.  That isn’t her real name.  She used a pen name to publish the book so no one would know who she is.”

“Senator Reardon will have her thrown out of the state if he finds out,” someone said with a giggle.

Olivia felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.  She had cut a piece of meat loaf but held it poised on her fork, unable to bring it to her mouth.  “Who’s to say it’s a she?” Olivia asked.  “Shawn – that could be man or a woman.”

“It’s a she,” Regina said conclusively.  “Everybody knows the story, but the men don’t really talk about it.  It’s the women who go on and on and who discreetly point when they see any of the Laportes on the street.  I’ll bet somebody decided it would be worth something.  Of course, they might have already left town.”

“Maybe Donovan Laporte wrote it,” another teacher suggested.  “He’s Reardon’s son, isn’t he?”

Regina considered this for a few seconds, then shook her head.  “Nah, he’d never do that.  The Reardons have done everything for him.  He’d get cut off in a second.”

“They’ve done everything for him except acknowledge him.  Maybe he’s tired of being ignored, while that twin brother of his gets to use the family name and launches a political career.  I mean, what can they really do to him now?  Take back his education?”

“You’ve got a point, but I still think it’s a woman,” Regina said.  “There’s something about the style . . . the way the emotion is captured . . . it just suggests a woman’s writing to me.”  She giggled.  “Maybe somebody ought to peek over the shoulder of all those senior citizens in town and see what they’re doing.  People like your aunts, Olivia.”

Olivia sat nervously toying with her mashed potatoes, but she managed to smile at that.  “No way would my aunts ever write about anything so scandalous.  Their generation doesn’t mind talking among themselves, but they feel that these types of situations should never be brought to the public.  It would be too embarrassing for the entire Laporte family.  It’s one thing to be an open secret locally.  It’s improper to put someone’s dirty family laundry all over the place.”  She quickly stuffed some food into her mouth before anyone could notice her frown.

The others agreed she was probably right.

Olivia managed to finish most of her lunch.  “Excuse me, girls.  I’ve got to make a phone call before the bell.”

They waved her off before resuming their conversation about Burning Bridges.  “My mother says there hasn’t been this much buzzing in the Delta since folks tried to figure out that hit song, the one about Billy Joe McAllister jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge forty-some years ago.”  Olivia heard Regina saying as she went to the door.

                         ***

Olivia went outside to the parking lot, looking both ways to make sure she was alone.  She dialed a number.  When it was answered she said without preamble, “Vivi, things are getting out of control.  Everybody is talking about my book and speculating on who wrote it.  Regina Hawkins even asked me if Aunt Edna or Aunt BeBe could be the author.”

“That was clearly a joke.  Our proper maiden aunts write a steamy novel?  Puh-leese.  I don’t know why that would upset you, Liv.”

“Oh, it was a joke, all right.  But the way I explained that it could never happen . . . I said that they would never trade people’s family business for money.  It made me physically ill to realize I’ve done just that.  I feel terribly guilty.”

Her twin hesitated before replying.  “Listen, Liv.  We promised each other that we weren’t going to end up like Aunt Edna and Aunt BeBe, another generation of spinster sisters living in Sunbeam.  You had an idea to write a novel and base it on the whispers we’ve been hearing our whole lives, and that seemed like a good way to finance our getting out of here.  You started writing when we were still in college, and it just got published late last year.  We turned twenty-six last month and we’re still stuck here, so we don’t have a whole lotta time if we don’t expect to end up like our aunts.  And the only reason no one else in Sunbeam has written it is because they don’t have the skills you do.”

“I know, but –”

“I think you’ve done a great job in concealing your identity, but you knew there was a good chance that tongues would wag.  Did you honestly think no one would notice the similarities in that fictional town you created and Sunbeam?”

“I really didn’t expect the book would catch on the way it has.”

“That’s why it got published, because the editor saw its potential.  Your book is a publisher’s dream.  It’s selling like Powerball tickets when the jackpot is a hundred million dollars.  Just relax, and think about how great your life will be when the money starts rolling in.”

“Oh, Vivi.”  Olivia sighed.  She’d wanted sympathy, and her twin wasn’t cooperating.  “Are you coming with me to Memphis?”

“I meant to tell you, I’ve got an appointment Tuesday morning at Employee Health.  I can come, but I’ll have to meet you up there.”

Olivia tried unsuccessfully to keep the panic out of her voice.  “Can’t you reschedule?”

“I’ve rescheduled once already.  I’ve got to have this screening done, Liv, or else they’ll suspend me until I do.  You’ll be fine.  If you can write a book by yourself, you can certainly collaborate on a screenplay with established screenwriters.”

“I’m not really collaborating.  I’m just there to toss ideas around about the general outline of the story.”

“They don’t know your real name, do they?”

“Good grief, no.  To them I’m Shawn Lamont.  But the reservation is under another name.  Merle Anderson.”

“You’re taking every precaution, Liv.  No one will find out who you are.”

“There’s the warning bell.  I’ve got to get back to class.  Thanks, Vivi.”

                     ***

At the dinner table, Olivia clasped hands with her elderly great aunts, Edna and Beatrice Kelly, and recited grace.  Afterward she said, “The food smells good, Aunt Edna.  What’d you make?”

“Pork with apricot.”

Olivia smiled.  Her great-aunt, eighty-six years old, participated in a cooking class and prepared all types of dishes, some of them more tasty than others.  Olivia did admire both of her aunts for the graceful way they’d aged.  They both kept busy, both mentally and physically.  Both women did daily stretches and exercises.  They bowled twice a week in a senior’s league and played bingo every Saturday at church.  Beatrice, nicknamed BeBe, continued to sew, usually making outfits for the twin grand-nieces she and Edna stepped in to raise after their parents’ car ran off the road and flipped in a ditch on a rainy night when the girls were just four.  There was no such thing as a best-dressed list, but if there had been, the Kelly twins would have been at the top of it.

BeBe sampled a forkful of the pork, then immediately went into a coughing spasm and gulped down half of her iced tea.  “Not bad, Edna, but you’ve got enough pepper in it to kill a horse.”

“I’m sorry, BeBe.  I thought I stirred it well.”

“Not well enough.”

Olivia tried not to laugh.  Her great aunts had lived under the same roof all their lives, even when, as young women, they went to Memphis to work, Edna in what was known at the time as the “colored” hospital, and BeBe at a mortuary, they lived in the same boarding house.  As long as Olivia could remember, the sisters had been bickering about one thing or another.

“Olivia, will you be available to help out after dinner?” Edna asked.  “Our reading group is having a meeting here at seven-thirty, and I’d like to serve refreshments.  I baked a Williamsburg Orange Cake this afternoon, and there’s vanilla ice cream in the freezer.”

“Sure, I’ll fix it up nice.”

“You and your sister are such good girls,” BeBe said.  “I hope you realize that Vivica helps out, too.  It’s actually rather nice, having her here with us in the mornings while you’re at the school.”

“I like it, too, but I expect she’ll change to a day shift as soon as she has the seniority,” Edna said.

Olivia only half-listened to the exchange, for something had just occurred to her.  “Aunt Edna, this isn’t your regular reading group meeting, is it?”

“No, it isn’t.  But some of the girls want to read that scandalous new book, Burning Bridges, and some of them think it’s just too racy.  We called a special meeting to discuss it.”

“It’s supposed to be based on our town, you know,” BeBe added, speaking in a near-whisper.  “I admit I was curious to see what all the fuss was about, but Doretha Hawkins is reading her daughter’s copy and told me that it’s trash, just trash.”

“If you ask me, it’s that Eula Chandler who’s behind this,” Edna said, her voice ringing with indignation.  “She’s always been a gossip.”

“So what will you do about it?” Olivia asked, praying they’d decide against reading it, even if no one knew she was the author.  Usually her aunts’ club read books that had been out for years.  Burning Bridges was published just six months ago.

“We’ll take a vote.”

Olivia tried again.  “Won’t it be hard to get copies?”  Bookstores were rare in this part of the Delta.

“Eula says that the Wal-Mart in West Helena stocks it.”

“Well, that’s awfully far to go to get a book, don’t you think?”  West Helena was across the Mississippi River in Arkansas, about fifteen miles away.

“And Doretha says we can always ask Cissy Davis to pick up copies when she drives up to Memphis this weekend to visit her son.  He has a membership in that Sam’s Club warehouse, and they’re supposed to have quite a few copies in stock.”

Olivia saw another chance and jumped on it.  “That’s a lot to ask someone.  It’s a very expensive book.  It’s hardcover, you know.  I think it costs nearly twenty-five dollars.”  She conveniently left out the fact that the book would cost considerably less at a discount club.

“Oh, my,” Edna said.  “Maybe we should wait until it comes out in paperback, BeBe.  That might cause a hardship for some.”

“After all, we’re all retired,” BeBe said in agreement.

“Oh, by the way,” Olivia said, confident that she’d successfully deterred the reading group away from Burning Bridges.  “I’m going up to Memphis next week.  I’m leaving Tuesday and will be back on Thursday.  One of my friends is getting married, and she wants me to help her buy her dress.”

“That’s nice, Olivia, but wouldn’t it be better if you went during the weekend?  That way you wouldn’t have to take time off from work.”

“I’m off next week, Aunt BeBe.  It’s spring break.  My friend is a teacher, too.  She thinks she’ll get more done if she goes shopping during the week, since most people go looking on the weekends.”

“Oh yes, of course.”

“Is Vivica going with you?” Edna asked.

“She’s driving up separately, on Wednesday.  She has to take some kind of health screening test at the hospital, and I promised my friend I’d be there first thing Tuesday morning.”

“I do wish you two would travel together,” BeBe fretted.  “I think you’d be safer.”

“Aunt BeBe, we’ll be fine.  We’ve made that drive a whole lot of times before.  It’s barely an hour.  You make it sound like we’re each driving to New Orleans.”

                     ***

As Olivia drove north on Highway 61 in her beige Volkswagen Bug convertible, she, too, wished that Vivica were with her.  She felt like she was out of her element with these people Hollywood screenwriters.  What could she possibly have to say to them?”

She parked at The Peabody Hotel’s garage, explaining that she was checking in later today but was meeting with guests who’d already arrived.  Then she took one last glance at herself in the mirror.  Her hair was in place, her lipstick was even, her cheeks flushed just the right amount, and her collar straight.  She removed her purse and briefcase from the passenger seat and walked toward the lobby.  Within minutes she was in an elevator, headed for the fourth floor.

The door to Suite 421 opened before she reached it.  A man stepped out in the hall and greeted her by her pseudonym.  “Miss Lamont?”

Olivia’s first thought was that there’d been some mistake.  This man looked a lot younger than the middle-aged screenwriter she expected to see, barely thirty.  “And you are . . .?” she said as she shook his hand.

“Keith Barbour.”

That was the name she’d been provided with by her agent.  So he really was one of the screenwriters.  Her protection instinct flared.  How much experience could he possibly have, she wondered.  Had the network entrusted her novel to a rank amateur?  “I’m glad to know you, Mr. Barbour,” she said, remembering her manners.

“Call me Keith, please.”

“All right, Keith.  And I’m . . . Shawn.”

Keith stepped back and held the door open wide.  “Please come in.”

She hesitated, then relaxed when a look inside revealed a sofa, two side chairs, and a desk, with no bed in sight.  Apparently, the cable network developing her book into film had sprung for a suite.  “Thank you.”

A door on one end of the suite opened, and out came a woman in her early forties, dressed in a print blouse, denim skirt, and flat shoes.  “Good morning,” she said, hand outstretched.  “You must be Ms. Lamont.  I’m Tina Cole.  I’ll be working with Keith on the screenplay.”

“Hello, and please call me Shawn.”  The more Olivia said the name, the easier it became.  Still, she feared her real name would slip out.

They dispensed with the typical pleasantries . . . her drive up from Tunica, the historic hotel at which they stayed, the activity on nearby Beale Street.  “I just ordered some refreshments for us,” Tina said.  “In the meantime, why don’t we get started?”

Olivia quickly pegged Tina as the one who would lead the meeting, which made since, given that she probably had more experience than Keith.  “Sure,” she said.  “Why don’t you give me an idea of how you envision the story will play on the screen?”

“Well, I picture it as a chronological story, starting three or four generations back to the affair between the governor and the black woman who worked in his family’s household,” Tina explained.  “I’d like to show the contrasts between the Barrington family and the Vincents . . .”

As Olivia listened she automatically reassigned the two families with their real-life names, the Reardons and the Laportes.

“ . . . how the Barringtons continued to prosper and how the Vincents became the leading black families in Barrington Bridges, but not having anywhere near the wealth or power of their white cousins,” Tina concluded.  She looked at Keith.  “Keith has a different tack.”

“Yes,” he said.  “I liked the idea of starting with the birth of the first child of the governor and Sarah Vincent, and then moving into the present day, with periodic flashbacks to the past.”

“Kind of like The Godfather, Part II,” Olivia said.

“Yes, that’s it.  It’s difficult to pull off, but I think Tina and I have the chops to do it.”

Olivia thought for a moment, aware of two pairs of eyes looking at her with both anxiety and hope.  “They both sound like wonderful ideas.  I’m not sure if either would work better than the other.  Maybe we can combine the two, show the contrasts in how the two families fared and intersperse the story with flashbacks of the past hundred years.”

That seemed to please both screenwriters.  They began discussing the layout of the story in earnest, and ideas poured forth from all three of them like water from a bucket.  Olivia’s nervousness faded.  All of them wanted the adaptation to be a success, and that was what counted.  She had nothing to worry about.

                     ***

Miles handed the male employee twenty dollars, and he promptly removed his white jacket.  “You say you only want this for a minute, right?” he said, still holding the bill.

“That’s right.  I just need to get a look at who’s in there.  I’m not going to harm anyone.  You can pat me down if you want.”  Miles held his breath.  He wasn’t carrying a concealed weapon, but he found the idea of a pat-down highly unappealing.  “Just let me deliver the order.”  To his relief, the employee pocketed the money.  He didn’t seem too interested in his motives.  He’d just earned twenty dollars for parting with his jacket for five minutes.

“Okay.”

Miles put on the jacket, buttoned it, and removed an engraved name pin that said ‘Javon’ from the pocket of his black khakis and pinned it on his chest.  He removed the white hat that resembled an envelope from the employee’s head and placed it on top of his own.

“You know, they don’t allow us to wear our hair like that,” the young man said.

Miles fingered the dreadlocked wig that hung past his shoulders.  It itched his scalp something fierce, and he knew that no hotel would allow their kitchen staff to wear long hair unless it was tied back, but he wanted to obscure his face as much as possible.  The clear horn-rimmed glasses he wore helped some, but they alone weren’t a sufficient disguise.  It hadn’t been easy finding out the names of the screenwriters whose services had been secured by the cable network to write a screenplay for Burning Bridges.  Once he learned that they were coming to Memphis, he knew there could only be one reason for their travel . . . they’d be meeting with Shawn Lamont.  All he had to do was get into that meeting so he could see her.

“Be right back,” he said to the employee as he confidently wheeled the cloth-covered cart toward the elevator.

Miles knocked on the door of Room 421.  “Catering,” he said loudly.

To Miles’ surprise, the door was opened by a man about his own age.  Could this be Shawn Lamont?

“Right this way,” the man said.

Miles slid the cart into the room, his senses at full alert.  Two women sat on a sofa, both typing into laptop computers.  A third laptop sat on the desk.  One of the women was middle-aged, a little on the heavy side and casually dressed.  The other was young, in her twenties, and was quite a looker.  She had a light-brown-skinned complexion, and her hair hung past her shoulders in the back and was cut shorter in front, framing her perfect oval face.  She wore a casual tailored outfit of black pants, black-and-white plaid blouse, and a red blazer.  His gut told him she was Shawn.

“Good morning,” he said pleasantly.  “I have your breakfast here.”

“Let’s see what you’ve got,” the older woman said, walking over to him.  She removed the metal lids of the serving dishes, one by one, as he moved them from the cart to the oval table in the corner.  “Pancakes . . . scrambled eggs . . . home fries . . . bacon . . . sausage . . . ham.  Looks like you’ve got it all.”

Miles bent his tall frame to remove the condiments and beverages from the second shelf of the tray.  “Here’s your coffee, orange juice, and cream, sugar, butter and syrup.”

“Did you order biscuits, Tina?” the man asked.

Miles made a mental note of the name the man just said.  If the older woman was Shawn, Tina might be her real name.  He didn’t think that was the case, since he doubted that the novelist, technically a guest of the network, would be the one to order breakfast, but his mind had been trained to pick up on any information, no matter how trivial it seemed.

“Yes, sir, they’re right here,” Miles said, answering the man’s question.  He squatted to retrieve the basket of biscuits from the bottom rack of the tray, where it rested alongside silverware, plates, cups, saucers, and drinking glasses.

After he had removed the utensils and was left with an empty cart, Tina glanced at his name plate.  “Thank you very much, Javon.”

“You’re welcome, ma’am.  Will there be anything else?”

“No, I think that’s it.  Give us an hour before you come back to remove this.”

He bowed stiffly.  “Very well, ma’am.  Enjoy your meal.”  He wouldn’t be back, of course, but he’d be sure to let the owner of the jacket know when he gave it back to him.

The other man handed him a few bills.  “Thanks, man.”

“You’re very welcome, sir.”

As Miles turned to leave he sneaked one more glance at the woman on the sofa, who was frowning over something on her computer screen.  Now, she looked hot.  Even with her wearing pants, he could tell she had long legs.  He imagined them to be all silky and smooth, imagined her tantalizing a man’s cheek with them . . . .

“Shawn, let’s take a break to have some breakfast while it’s all nice and hot,” Tina suggested.

Bingo.  That’s what he’d been hoping to hear.