Echoes in the Bayou (37 page)

At the
time he thought it was good that Steve was
so
aggressive. After he had pitched Magnus's very first novel and got him signed
on with a big publishing house, Magnus knew that he had made the right choice.
And it was all but solidified when the novel started climbing the best seller
list. He remembered when he'd gotten his first royalty check and how he was
sure that the comma had been misplaced. But when Steve assured him that it was
correct, he thought he'd definitely made the right decision.

But the
more books he wrote, the more Steve
seemed to
push. He was soon asking Magnus to produce novel after novel with no breaks in
between and at first he could keep up, what with all the wonderful and creative
ideas that he had stored in his head and the pages and pages of notes he had
written down. With each new idea came a new book but after a while it got to be
too much. He'd started dating Jeanette then and he found that he was spending
so much time trying to meet his deadlines that he had no longer had time for a
life. His creativeness went right out the window and the simple need to keep up
with his agent's demands took over.

It wasn’t
until right before he moved
to the plantation
that he told Steve that he needed a break, that he was feeling the strain and
it was too much, way too much for a writer he told him. So Steve backed off,
told him that he'd give him some time to collect his thoughts and in the
meantime he would concentrate on his other clients, the one's he'd been
neglecting. That's when Magnus began to see another side of him. Steve had been
traveling far too much, he had started working as an agent when he lived in New
York, but now that he was in New Orleans, things started to get even more
hectic. He'd made the move to New Orleans so that he could take on some new and
upcoming southern based authors without asking his wife first and that in
itself was another unwanted strain. But Steve didn’t care; he figured she'd be
happy once she saw the extra money rolling in.

His wife
was unhappy with the
move; he was still going
back and forth from New York to New Orleans almost weekly. The man had clearly
taken on too much and as a single agent he'd taken on more than fifteen
clients. That meant that he was responsible for overseeing all of his clients
publishing contracts, and practices, especially where television, film, or
foreign rights were involved. This prevented the author's working relationship
with his or her editor from becoming strained due to unforeseen disputes such
as royalty statements or late checks. Another recurrent function of Steve's job
was to sometimes act as counselor, advising an author on various aspects of how
to make writing a paying proposition on a very timely basis. Added to this was
query after query from new writers.

"It
isn’t all that i
t's cracked up to be,"
Steve had told Magnus one time. But once his new book hit the shelves, Steve
seemed to catch his second wind. He'd lined up the book tour, started making
calls to movie and television executives; he spoke to them on Magnus's behalf
even though Magnus had no idea of what direction he wanted to go.

Now it was
Magnus who had put a stop to it, he guessed that
Steve had been using for quite a while now and things had gotten way out of
control. The more he thought about it the more he began to realize that Steve
had a much bigger problem than Magnus originally thought. The strange mood
swings, the bloody noses, the feeling of paranoia. It all made sense now and he
knew that if Steve wasn’t ready and willing to admit that he had a problem then
there would be no sense in trying to convince his friend otherwise.

He hadn’t
wanted
to leave things on such a sour note but
weeks after he canceled the tour, Magnus was unable to get in touch with Steve.
His calls went unanswered and his door went unopened. In the end Magnus simply
had his attorney draw up papers explaining that his contract was up and that it
would not be renewed. At that moment, Magnus was glad for the contracts end.
Had he signed a renewal, he would have been stuck for another two years.

He also
decided that when he got to Vermont an
d if Ava
took him back, he would self-publish his books from now on. 
No more need for the middle man
, he told himself.
Greedy
middle men like Steve cause nothing but trouble.

"Saturday
morning can't come fast enough," he told his mother
.

"I
know it can't son, I know it can't. But please call us and let us know if
you'll be staying. Your father and I
haven’t had
been up North in years and we'd love to take a trip to Vermont. Besides, we are
dying to meet your Ava," she said with a grin.

"Mom,
she's the best thing that ever happened to me and I cannot wait for you to meet
her," he beamed.

His
parents had promised to take care of any and all affairs that dealt with the
plantation while he was away. He'd given his parents along with the new realtor
keys to the place and was to leave his car
with
them as well. He had already lined up a rental and was to pick it up at the
airport the moment he landed in Vermont.

He even
went so far as to check the weather. He'd bought some new clothes to go along
with the New England forecast and even though it was the first week of April,
he knew that weather in New England was quite unpredictable and so he packed
accordingly. He wondered whether or not Ava was adjusting to the climate
change. He pictured her in sweaters and tight jeans, skirts and sexy knee
length boots.  A devilish smile crept across his face as he thought about
taking them off of her.

 
"You sure you want to do this Ava?" Kelly
asked. They were at the Personal Touch Hair Salon sitting side by side getting
mani-pedi's.

"I only ask because you told me
that you've keep your spiral curls for like ever and
I'd hate to see you do something drastic and then not be happy with the
results."

Ava
chuckled. "It's just hair Kell, and I want something different. All I want
is an inch or two cut off, and for my curl
s to
be more relaxed looking, you know more loose. I want something a bit more
easier to take care of, especially with the baby coming."

"Well
I for one am proud of you, your finally pampering yourself and you deserve it
Ava. We are going to have a blast at the dinner tonight, you just wait and
see," she grinned at her.

"O
h yeah, it'll be a barrel of laughs, I bet I'll be the
only single person there. Whoop- whoop, so exciting," she said. There was
so much sarcasm in her voice that Kelly couldn’t help but laugh.

"Come
on Ava, once the baby is born we need to see about getting you back out into
the dating world.
"

Ava let
out a loud snicker. "Yes because that's just what a guy wants, a woman
who's just had a baby. I can see them lining up now, Not!" she blurted out
to her friend.

"Well
honey if you keep it up with that att
itude
you'll never find anybody," she said with a smirk.

"All
kidding aside Kell, I think after the baby is born I'll be too busy taking care
of him or her to care whether or not I have a man in my lif
e. And right now, nothing sounds better than that."

"Well
don’t start on the cat collecting just yet Ava, you're y
oung and you may think that you'll be alone forever but I know that
won't be the case. There are a lot of men out there who are quite fond of
single mothers, especially single mothers who are as gorgeous as you. You my
dear friend, turn more heads than I've ever seen another woman do so don’t give
up yet Ava, there are still good times to be had."

By the
time she had made it to the salon chair and was having her hair washed, Magnus
had boarded his flight and was on his way to Burlington Vermont.

The six
hour flight would put him in Vermont at around five in the evening and with the
rental car awaiting him, he planned on being at Ava's doorstep no later than
seven o'clock.

Burlington
International Airport had seen its share of visitors of course, but there was
one visitor in particular that wasn’t planning on staying much longer. It was
evening when Steve landed at the airport some four days before Magnus and as
promised; his connection had met him there. The skywalk was deserted and that's
where the exchange had taken place. Steve was given two packages; one was a
neatly obscured Ziploc bag full of cocaine. "Just to tide me over,"
he'd told the dealer. And the other was an easily concealable Smith and Wesson
nine millimeter pistol.

"Serial
number
scratched off like I asked?" He said
to the man.

"Hell
yeah, don’t want that shit coming back to me," the young man replied
.

After
handing him a heavy envelope, Steve concluded his business with the young man
and they parted ways.

He
had rented a car and was staying at a hotel just outside of Dorset; he needed
to get the lay of the land first and wanted to take close note of Ava's daily
routine. For several weeks now he'd been ignoring all of his calls, including
those from Magnus. For a while he simply holed up in his home in New Orleans,
snorting cocaine and thinking of ways on how to get even with Ava. And in one
night, he'd planned it all out. He'd fly to Vermont, lie low, keep an eye on
Ava, get to know her routine and then when he was sure that she was alone, he'd
take her down.

Once Ava
was out of the picture, he'd collect his wife Kelly, get her on the plane and
be back in New Orleans before anyone was the wiser. He'd simply dump Ava's body
on the way to the airport. "And that'll be that," he said to himself.

It took
only two days of driving around Dorse
t at
different times before he spotted her, from the back she looked the same. But
when she turned around, he cursed. "Fuck, the fuckin bitch is
pregnant," he said. His fist beat the dashboard of the rental car with
such force that the small car swayed a bit.

"There's
no going back now," he growled. He was determined to carry out his plan.
"Baby or no baby, you have got to go bitch," he said and gunned the
engine before speeding away.

The sight
of a pregnant Ava seemed to make hi
m even more
angry and the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he had to get
rid of her. She was pregnant and there was no doubt that it was Magnus's
baby.  And if she had planned on telling him, he knew that Magnus would
drop everything to be with her. And he knew that he could not contend with the
love that a man like Magnus would have for his child.

He
suspected that she hadn’t told Magnus the news yet
because if she had, he'd already be by her side. "Thanks to me and the
book tour you weren’t able to tell him the news. But don’t worry Ava, your
precious Magnus has put everything on hold just so he can come and see
you," he said with a sarcastic grin on his face.

 
"Once I get rid of her and get Magnus and Kelly
back to where they belong, things will go back to the way they were. I'll get
Magnus back on track, back on the tour, make that movie deal and be sitting on
top of the world in no time." He was standing in front of the mirror of
his hotel room. The Weathervane Motel was a comfy and affordable hotel that
held few guests and he liked it that way. No one paid attention to his comings
and goings and that was just the way he wanted it to be. He wanted to be
inconspicuous.

 
The more inconspicuous the better and when and if they
found Ava's body, no one would think to question him about his whereabouts. And
if they did, he'd simply tell them that he'd gone to visit his client Magnus
DuPonte per his request.  And he wasn’t the least bit worried about Kelly,
he knew if he told her what she wanted to hear, that she'd back him up one
hundred percent. During his surveillance of Ava, he'd seen Kelly too, and so
far he'd seen her when she was alone.

He was
glad to find her alone though, he couldn’t fathom the thought of another man
owning her, possessing her like he did. In his mind she still belonged to him
and no divorce papers, or court was going to change that. He'd gone through a
slump that's all, a slump caused by her best friend Ava. "Everything will
be alright babe, you'll see," he murmured before sniffing a line.

"You
look amazing!" Kelly said. She had turned in her chair and was viewing the
finished results.

"Thank
you so do you," Ava excitedly replied. She loved her new look and swung
her head around to show it off. Gone was the heaviness of the spiral curls. Her
hairdresser, Sheila
managed to give her exactly
what she wanted, versatility along with a big splash of sexy. Long luxurious
loose sexy curls bounced around her as she turned from side to side.