Say You Love Me. Rita Herron

Wonderful heady odors wafted toward them. Hot, spicy Cajun sausages and gumbo, jambalaya, shrimp po’boys….

      “Do you own this?”

      “No, my father does. It’s a family business.”

      A tall, broad-shouldered, older man with wavy, gray hair and a slight limp met them at the door. One glance into his eyes and she recognized him as a Dubois.

      He clapped Jean-Paul on the shoulders. “Ahh, Jean-Paul, so good to see you tonight, son. And here, you’ve brought a beautiful woman on your arm. Finally! Welcome, chere.”

      Britta froze, aware the detective shifted uncomfortably. “Papa, this is Miss Britta Berger. She’s helping me with a case.”

      His father pinched his fingers together and slapped them to his forehead, then lapsed into a round of French Cajun dialogue. Detective Dubois’s mouth tightened but he didn’t argue.

      Finally he angled his head her way. “My papa and maman think I work too much. But my job is my life.”

      “Those who do not take time to love will never find it,” Mr. Dubois spouted. “Take heed of what the song of New Orleans says.”

      Britta smiled, remembering the strange verse. Then a pudgy woman with a bun swooped toward them.

      “Maybe this was a bad idea. Maman is great, just very old-fashioned.” Dubois shot her an apologetic look just before his mother pulled him into a bear hug.

      A sharp pang slammed into Britta’s gut as her own mother’s face materialized in her mind. It had been so long since she’d seen her that her image was foggy. Her mother had never hugged her like that. She’d been too doped up. Her eyes hollow, not laughing. Her smile strained, her face gaunt.

      And then Britta had lost her forever.

      THE MOON BEAMED bright and full above the swampland as he made his way to his father’s grave in Black Bayou. Only the land had shifted since the last big hurricane and the patch of dirt he recognized was no longer there. His father’s remains had been swept into the tidal wave of the hurricane disaster, lost forever like so many others.

      Just as his father had been lost to him the day Adrianna had destroyed him. Behind him, miles away, stood the city. New Orleans—the Big Easy. The town of sinners.

      The city of the dead.

      There the graves remained, at least the ones that stood above ground. An ominous reminder that the city could be lost again in a second.

      No wonder Britta Berger had decided to hide in town. After all, technically, she was dead. Her new name stolen from one of those very graves just as he’d stolen a new name for himself.

      Muttering a prayer to his father, he renewed his vow for vengeance as he made his way through the backwoods to the new meeting place of his people. As he approached the circle of light created by the bonfire, the dark memories dragged him back to his childhood and the reason he’d returned.

      Yet, here he stood as an adult, trembling from fear, knowing he didn’t belong—that he’d never earned his manhood in the clan’s eyes. Hidden away among the backwater folks who worshipped Sobek, who feared the devil’s wrath, who still believed in the ancient ways, they fought the battle between good and evil.

      God would punish the sinners. But the devil was always working. Sometimes he walked among them, stealing souls and casting spells on innocents to convert them to do his service.

      The clan had to pull together. Pray. Offer the gods a sacrifice so they could live among the bayou safe from the crocodiles and vermin the devil used as traps for the weaker.

      The low hum of gospel singing echoed in the air, beginning the ceremony. The passage of boy to man, girl to woman.

      One was always taken.

      Adrianna’s face remained etched in his mind as the young girls dressed in virginal white stepped before the altar. Their mothers shivered with fear, knowing that any one of their daughters might be the chosen one.

      Only the girls knew nothing.

      But Adrianna had known. The devil must have whispered in her ear. And she had chosen him.

      Then the clan had cast him aside as if he was a leper.

      He fisted his hands at his sides. He had to destroy all those wicked women who defied their religion. The cheap whores. Satan’s messengers. Then the curse would be removed from him and he could once again walk among his people.

      Fury twisted his insides as time spun backward.

      He was back in Black Bayou on that fatal day.

      Blood soaked his hands, his face, his clothing where he leaned over his daddy’s body. Shouts and screams of terror and shock rocked through the clan. Suddenly someone yelled for them to hunt Adrianna.

      Torches were lit, tempers fired and men dispersed. He had gone with them. Hours had dragged as they’d relentlessly fought through the bayou. Crocodiles had threatened. Attacked. Another brother had fallen prey to the swamp, his limbs ripped away one by one by a gator’s sharp teeth.

      Then one had shot out of the water toward him. His stomach rolled as he recalled the gator’s teeth ruthlessly sinking into his arm, his torso, his ear. Fear had nearly crippled him.

      But Satan had decided to let him live that night. Death would have been too easy.

      Finally at daybreak they’d returned to the camp. Exhausted. He was half-dead.

      They hadn’t found Adrianna.

      Then his next realm of punishments had begun. He’d bowed his head before the snake pit, the blinding pain swirling him into a vortex of eternal darkness. The clan chanted and prayed for the demons to be exorcised from his body. They’d thought him weak. A traitor. That he had warned Adrianna….

      In their eyes, he was a failure. An outcast. He had not survived the trial by ordeal without looking guilty.

      Then they had banned him from their presence forever.

      Thunder clapped above, drawing him back to the present. He stood on the edge of another clan now, the work of the great Ezra Cortain in progress. The pounding drums echoed around him and the chants began, praising Sobek. Although forced to remain on the periphery, he clasped his hands and silently joined their prayer.

      Adrianna might be able to run, but she couldn’t hide.

      And she had changed her name, but he knew it, as well as her real one. The Christian one her mother had given her.

      The one he would call her when he finally offered her to the spirits.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      JEAN-PAUL SILENTLY CURSED his decision to bring Britta Berger to his family’s restaurant. He should have called it a night. Left her at her apartment. Gone back to the precinct.

      But once he’d ignored his family’s welfare for his job and his wife had died. He’d never forgive himself. Lucinda’s family hadn’t forgiven him, either.

      He had to warn his sisters and mother now that there was a killer preying on women.

      A low jazz tune wailed in the background of the diner, wrapping tendrils of nostalgia around him—and a longing for what he’d lost. The comfort of a companion. The feel of a woman’s touch.

      Only Lucinda had never been a comfort about his job. She’d hated it and begged him to leave police work.

      God, why was he thinking about her tonight?

      Because another woman had died and you couldn’t stop it.

      “This is the rest of our family!” His maman gestured toward the wall of family photographs above the table, forcing Jean-Paul back to the present as she rattled on. “Jean-Paul is the oldest and of course, always the responsible one, taking care of everyone.”

      “Mother—”