Wild Man's Curse (Wilds of the Bayou #1)

by Susannah Sandlin

  Of course, maybe Jena would’ve told her more if they hadn’t been distracted by the tongue. What kind of sick freak cut out somebody’s tongue and left it as a calling card? And did Gentry’s “special assignment” have anything to do with this case?

  Ceelie didn’t like games. She didn’t like being lied to or talked around. She didn’t like being “handled.” She didn’t like being kept in the dark “for her own good.”

  All those things seemed to be happening.

  Until she could pin Jena to the wall and make her talk, however, all Ceelie could accomplish while the officers did their job was to do her own: take the new set of throwing bones from Tomas Assaud and make them hers. The bones never lie, Tante Eva had told her. They always fall true.

  One big problem with that: she had no idea how to claim these bones as her own. She spread out the worn square of leather on the throwing table and poured the delicate bones out of their plastic bag onto the mat, hoping for inspiration. She set the candles at northwest and southeast.

  Taking the carved wooden box out of the drawer, she pondered how literally she should take Tomas’s instructions. Had he meant she needed to actually bury Tante Eva’s throwing bones, and, if so, did the box needed to be buried as well? Or was a figurative burial sufficient?

  You have the sight, and each sight must have its own guide, Tomas had said. To Ceelie, that translated as Follow your gut, and her gut told her to get rid of Eva’s throwing bones—they needed to be out of this cabin, and that would be enough.

  Since the cabin’s only door led straight to the awful gift that had most likely been left by the same psycho who’d killed her aunt and tried to scare her away with the skull and painted door, Ceelie tugged open the back window. She leaned out as far as she dared without losing her balance and threw the latched box as hard to the right as she could. It cleared the corner of the cabin and landed in Whiskey Bayou with a satisfying splash about two feet off the bank. The box floated for a few seconds along the murky top of its watery tomb, then sank out of sight.

  Rest easy, Tante Eva.

  She sang an old French song she remembered from her childhood as she wandered around the cabin, scanning the shelves and counters for something in which her own throwing bones could live. She stopped at the sight of a worn, leather-covered cufflink case sitting atop the tiny bedside table. She’d seen the flat, rectangular case in a store window in Houma when she was a teenager, after her dad had gotten sick but before he’d been forced to quit his job at the gas plant.

  She hadn’t known what the box was for, really. She’d never seen her dad wear cufflinks, or any other jewelry except a wristwatch and the gold wedding band he’d never taken off. She’d thought the box was beautiful and might make her dad feel better. The soft leather was the color of dark chocolate, and a shiny gold crest, now flaked and faded, had been stamped on top. The inside was lined in cream-colored satin.

  She’d bought it for his birthday, spending money from the “Get Out of Terrebonne Parish” fund both she and Dad had been contributing to since her mom left. He’d chastised her for the purchase at first. Then he’d made too big a fuss over it, realizing how desperate she’d been to make him feel better and how helpless she felt to do so. It was the only thing of his she’d kept, using it for her own few pieces of jewelry.

  He’d probably chastise her again, but she knew the box was where her own throwing bones should live. She took out a couple of bracelets, a silver ring, and a few guitar picks—the box’s only contents—and stuck them in the zippered outer pouch of her suitcase.

  She kept the candles at northwest and southeast for protection, lit them, and sat before the throwing table, humming her in-progress Whiskey Bayou song while placing each of the bones into the case. With each one, she paid homage to the role it had played in the animal’s life. Once the bones were inside the box, she prayed to the God of her church, asked the Virgin Mary for intervention, then added a few words of respect for the mystic leader of her Chitimacha ancestors, the guidance of her Tante Eva, and the universe in general. Finally, she made the sign of the cross, to confuse things even more. Somehow, it felt right when she ended with Amen.

  Gotta love the contradictory nature of South Louisiana.

  With a start, Ceelie realized she did love it. Maybe Dad had wanted more for her than he’d been able to find here, but it had been wrong of him to make her promise to leave. Maybe not being here was what had kept her from being whole, what had made her music begin to fall silent. Maybe that one song that had come to her before she left Nashville was telling her it was time to go home.

  She shook her head to erase those thoughts. The meaning of home was something to ponder later. She blew out the candles, moved them back to northeast and southwest for divination, and lit them again. She held the box of bones over which she had prayed, and, closing her eyes, upended them onto the leather mat.

  The bones will fall true, child. You just have to know how to understand what they’re tryin’ to say. The bones never lie.

  They tumbled out like macabre pickup sticks. Ceelie studied the pattern into which they’d fallen, tiny pricks of memory returning to her. The wing bone meant travel; the foot, evil. She sought out the single foot, and a shiver ran across her shoulders when she saw it lying over the neck bone, which represented life. Danger awaited someone, maybe death. But whose death? Not hers, or the foot would have lain across the skull. This pattern foretold danger or death for someone close to her.

  Which was ridiculous, because she wasn’t close to anyone. Not here, anyway, and she doubted the bones meant Sonia was going to be run down by a Nashville bus.

  They mean Gentry. He’s in danger.

  What a ridiculous thought. She barely knew the man and was letting this weird, long day get to her. Ceelie leaned over and blew out the candles, then jumped like she’d been shot when someone knocked on the door.

  She was so rattled that she opened it without asking who was there.

  “You’re not too good at this staying-safe thing.” Jena took a wide step over the threshold even though the tongue was no longer there. In its place was a smear of blood, however, that Ceelie would have to douse in pine cleaner. Otherwise, she’d have gators at her door following the scent.

  “Are the deputies through out there?” She went into the kitchen and pulled out an industrial-sized bottle of cleaner, which she’d bought on her first trip to the store and had already used down to the halfway point.

  “Yeah—you’re going to cover the bloodstain? Good idea. I’ve already shooed a vulture away from the area.”

  Damn it. “Big turkey vulture? Red head, mean eyes?”

  “Yep, that’s the one. Funny, that’s what people say about me.”

  Ceelie smiled. “I doubt that.” Jena Sinclair was nice and, under other circumstances, good friend material. Maybe good friend material anyway. “I wish you’d shot the damned thing.”

  Jena laughed. “Not the thing to say to a wildlife agent.”

  “Right. No telling agents to shoot animals: duly noted. There’s no shortage of those nasty things, though.” Ceelie took the cleaner to the door and poured at least a cup on top of the bloodstain. That would do for now. No self-respecting gator—or vulture, for that matter—would come anywhere near it while it reeked of pine.

  She closed and locked the door and turned to look at Jena. The agent had taken off her cap and finger-combed her tousle of dark-red hair. With her sharp green eyes, fair complexion, and height, she was downright striking. “You ever do any modeling?”

  Jena laughed. “God, no. I have two left feet. I’m pretty sure models need to be graceful. And I have the fashion sense of a forensic biologist—which was my background before I got into law enforcement. Besides, don’t change the subject.”

  Ceelie feigned innocence. “Did we have a subject? You mean vultures?”

  Jena walked to the corner of the room where Ceelie had stuck her suitcase. She picked it up and laid it on the bed. “Start
packing. You can’t stay here, not until this case is wrapped up.”

  Damn it. Jena was right. The tongue had convinced her of that, coming so soon after the skull. But it galled her to have some nutjob dictate where she could and couldn’t go, where she could and couldn’t live.

  “How do you know when you’ve crossed the line between being strong and independent and being stupid?”

  Jena smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “When there a sociopath targeting you, or at least your house, and you refuse to accept help, that’s stupid.” She pointed at the suitcase. “Not putting some clothes in there and leaving with me right now? That crosses the line into stupid too.”

  A flush of guilt spread its heat across Ceelie’s face at Jena’s tense expression. She’d probably been ordered to make sure her charge left for her own good, and wasn’t sure Ceelie would do it. Jena wouldn’t leave without her, and the idea she might be putting the agent in danger brought clarity. She had to go. For all she knew, Jena could be the one in danger.

  The bones never lie.

  “I guess you’re right.” Ceelie opened the suitcase and went into the postage-stamp-sized bathroom to grab a few things she’d hung up to dry this morning. The rest of her clothes, what few she had, were already in the suitcase. The cabin had no closet, and she had yet to figure out what to do with them. Plus, unpacking felt permanent. It felt like more of a commitment to Terrebonne Parish than she had been willing to make.

  Now that she’d finally realized how much she loved this place, even this tiny little shack, she was being forced to leave. Ironic.

  Ceelie sat on the bed, flummoxed. “I don’t know where to go.” She’d been feeling intelligent and empowered; suddenly, she nosedived into epic failure. “Maybe one of the fishing camps down in Cocodrie I saw yesterday would be pretty cheap this time of year.” She’d feel safer there than in a fleabag hotel.

  “You can stay at my place in Houma,” Jena said. “It’s not much, but I have a sofa that pulls out into a bed. Besides, we’re gonna get this guy soon and then you can get on with your life.”

  “Yeah, my big, fat, successful life.” Ceelie laughed, then mentally slapped herself upside the head. Self-pity was an ugly state to live in, and she didn’t plan to set up residence there.

  “Your voice is amazing.” Jena picked up the Gibson, which Ceelie had propped against the wall near the bathroom door. “If you haven’t made it yet, all it means is that the time hasn’t been right. Or maybe the place.”

  Ceelie shrugged. “Probably. I used to think I could make it, but Nashville beat me down.” Now that she’d been away, even for just a week, she could see how defeated she had become. “Who knows. Maybe I’ll try Austin.”

  “Nope.” Jena handed her the guitar. “Lafayette’s the place to start, and it’s close enough for you to live here if you decide you want to stay. I’ll ask Mac about the best music spots—one of the agents in our unit. He’s up there every weekend for the music.” She shook her head. “Well, he’s also up there to pick up women, but that’s another story.”

  “Sounds like one best enjoyed over pizza and beer.”

  “Definitely. Let’s get out of here and find some before it gets any later.”

  And darker. And scarier. Ceelie agreed. Now that she’d finally admitted she shouldn’t stay out here alone, she couldn’t leave fast enough.

  Jena pulled her pistol from its holster before unlocking the deadbolt. “Let me take a look around first. The sheriff’s office was supposed to leave someone on guard, but we’re taking no chances.”

  Ceelie waited inside, straining to hear voices. Part of her—a big part—hated the idea of fleeing from her home like she’d done something wrong. And yes, it had become home.

  After a soft knock on the front door, Jena stuck her head inside. “You ready?”

  Ceelie took a last look around, her gaze coming to rest on the throwing table. “I need to get one more thing. Can you take this?” She shifted the handle of her rolling suitcase to Jena, then opened the top drawer of the table. Moving quickly, she put the throwing bones into the cufflink case and snapped it shut, then rolled the candles up in the leather mat. Tucking it all under one arm, she grabbed the Gibson with her other hand and walked onto the porch.

  This was her life in a nutshell, wasn’t it? An old guitar, a box of bones, and the blood that ran through the veins of her people. Her people. She could honor her promise to her dad and leave this parish, but she could never leave behind who she was and the people who’d come before her. She’d left for the wrong reasons.

  She hadn’t understood that until now.

  “I’ll be back,” she whispered, and closed the door behind her. She didn’t bother locking it. The cabin on Whiskey Bayou would not be hers again until all this was over.

  Jena looked curiously at the box and rolled-up leather bundle under her arm, but didn’t say anything. “You want to ride with me or follow me?”

  “Follow.” She’d be damned if she left the truck here. It represented her last shred of independence. “Are you sure it’s okay to stay with you?”

  “Absolutely.” At the corner of the porch, they ran into the deputy who’d answered Gentry’s call about the skull-and-bloody-door episode. The name embroidered on his uniform shirt read “A. Meizel.”

  “Glad you’re leaving, Ms. Savoie.” He held a rifle in the crook of his left arm and a long flashlight in his right hand. Another fifteen minutes or so and full dark would fall. “Hopefully, we’ll catch this man soon. We’re close.”

  “Okay, enough.” Ceelie stopped, giving them no choice but to stop with her. “I can tell something’s happened. I want to know what it is.”

  “As soon as we get to my place, I’ll fill you in,” Jena said, her voice low. “I promise. We need to go so Deputy Meizel and his colleagues can do their job.”

  “I’m holding you to that.” Ceelie clenched her jaw and gave a tight nod. She followed Jena off the porch and set her throwing materials and guitar in the passenger’s seat of the truck.

  “Okay if I put your suitcase in the back of my truck?” Jena already had it wedged halfway behind the driver’s seat.

  “Sure.” Between the Gibson, the bones, and the suitcase, the luggage was the least important. She wouldn’t take off without the former, but the latter didn’t mean much. Clothes could be replaced.

  The sound of a generic ringtone could barely be heard above the swamp noises beginning to rise around them as night fell. Jena cursed. “Hang on.” She finished shoving Ceelie’s suitcase in the pickup and unclipped a phone from her belt. “Hey, Broussard.”

  Tension drained from Ceelie’s muscles; she hadn’t realized it was there. Even before she’d thrown the bones, she’d had a feeling Gentry was in trouble. The bones had given birth to a fear that he was injured. Maybe worse.

  Sometime when she’d begun to realize Whiskey Bayou was home, she’d also begun to think of Gentry Broussard as more than a pheromone-emitting uniformed guy with bedroom eyes and dimples. Though he surely to God was all that.

  She wrenched her thoughts from bedroom eyes to listen to Jena’s end of the conversation, which so far had contained a lot of mild expletives and a few groans. “Okay, okay. Give me the address,” she said, pulling the little notebook and pen from her pocket. “Where’s the key? What about the dog?” Jena’s voice rose. “Broussard, we are not going to stand outside your house until you get home. If the dog doesn’t like us, he’ll have to get over it. I have a stun gun.”

  Ceelie slapped a hand over her mouth when Jena held her phone a foot away from her ear while Gentry had a fit over what sounded like her threat to stun his dog. Did that mean a change of plans?

  “See you when we see you.” Jena stuck her phone back in its belt clip. “I have to meet Gentry and our lieutenant at his place when he finishes up—he’s on his way to the sheriff’s office right now and doesn’t know what time. Want me to drop you at my apartment first?”

  And miss a chanc
e to check out Chez Broussard? “No way. I want to meet Hoss, and I want to know what’s going on. You promised.”

  Jena smiled, and Ceelie thought she looked even more worn-out than Deputy Meizel. “So I did.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Gentry was ready for somebody to stick a fork in him. He’d been grilled and fried and was past well-done by ten p.m., and that had been an hour ago.

  The halos from the scant streetlights scattered around the unincorporated community of Montegut bled together into a haze. He turned down Pelican Street toward his house, which backed up to an earthen levee and, beyond that, Bayou Terrebonne.

  As if the night hadn’t already been bad enough, he had no doubt that two women had been rifling through his stuff and terrorizing his dog for hours; they’d probably sent out a memo to everyone in the department that his Big Bad Beast was a wriggling twenty-pound pudgeball with bat ears. Warren still wanted his own pound of flesh. To top it off, he had to call his mother and break the news that her dead eldest son the junkie was now alive and committing gruesome murders around his old hometown, including extracting the tongue of his former best friend.

  Gentry swore he’d shoot himself with his own SIG Sauer if he didn’t fear that he’d fail and end up filling out reams of paperwork while detective John Ramsey hammered him with questions.

  Maybe he could take care of Warren by reciting the same answers he’d been giving Ramsey for hours.

  No, he’d had no idea his brother Langston had survived the shooting in New Orleans, nor how he’d done so.

  No, he hadn’t heard from Lang prior to the phone call this afternoon.

  No, he hadn’t been protecting Lang by not telling anyone the killer looked like his brother; he’d believed the resemblance was a product of his own guilty imagination.