Blood on the Bayou: A Cafferty & Quinn Novella Read Online Free PDF Page A

about my mom. He didn’t want her going out at all. They found the one young woman, Genevieve LaCoste, almost where we were last night. I don’t know why I remember her name so clearly. She was a mess. The medical examiner said that she’d been ripped up by animals after death. But Danni, her throat was ripped out, too. Just like the guy last night. The cops never found the killer. They insisted that there was a killer, but old Selena Duarte told them that it was the rougarou . She said that the young women had behaved badly. They ignored the rules of Lent and spent their nights drinking and meeting up with young men at bars.”
    “They never caught the killer,” Danni said, “but that doesn’t mean that there was a rougarou . Have you offended anyone, David? You or Julian? Do you know if anyone is angry with you? Someone who would do something so horrible, just to ruin your tours?”
    He laughed. “There’s old Selena Duarte. But she’s five-foot-two and pretty fragile.”
    “Why is Selena upset with you?”
    “She considers the swamp her personal property.”
    “But other companies do swamp tours there.”
    “Apparently, according to Selena, our night tours have awakened the spirit of the rougarou . We’re not being respectful.”
    “Anyone else?” Danni asked.
    She wished that Quinn was here. She wasn’t sure how to help David or where to go from there. She’d learned that objects could be evil. Either within themselves or by making others believe in evil.
     The rougarou of legend was not a thing, not inanimate. It was a beast, a creature, a monster.
    “Julian is one of the nicest guys in the world. He’s never offended anyone,” David said. “Except for that one guy. He wanted a job with us, but Julian didn’t like him. He said that he came in for the interview either stoned or drunk. And when Julian said something, the guy told him that he should be cool, ‘it was like, New Orleans, and you know, we’re all laid back here.’ In fact, he thought that we should serve absinthe on our swamp tours, and that the captain and the guide ought to drink with everyone. You know Julian. He’s a safety first kind of guy. Partying is fine on your off hours, but never when you have a responsibility. He told the guy to get out. The guy told Julian that he was going to rot in hell.”
    “You still have his application?” Danni asked.
    “Sure. But whether people tell the truth on an application or not is another matter,” David reminded her.
    “Let’s head over to the office. Is Julian there?”
    “He should be. It’s right on Chartres Street. Are we walking?”
    “Yep. And we’ll take Wolf with us,” she told David.
    Though he couldn’t protect them from everything, the dog’s presence might make David feel better. She hurried into the shop to tell Billie that she’d be with David and to give Quinn a heads-up if he called. Billie had Bo Ray down working with him. She left the shop with David.
    As they walked down Royal Street to the corner, then to Chartres, they passed her shop window. Count D’Oro stood there, his mannequin eyes fantastically evil, his white shirt and gold vest impeccable despite the pool of fabric “blood” at his feet and the display of “ Rougarou Repellent,” voodoo-doll-like charms on the small three-pronged stool by his side. The mannequin had an evil twist to its lips and he gripped his cane with its silver wolf’s head with casual ease, as if ready to move at any moment. David stopped walking and stared. It was clear that he hadn’t noticed the window when he’d visited the shop in the past.
    “Count D’Oro, known to have awakened the demon of the rougarou before his murder spree,” he said.
    “The man was a sick murderer long before he believed he had the power of the rougarou , and long before he claimed that it was the rougarou doing the killing,” she told him.
    David continued to stare at the display, then he turned to Danni. “He claimed that the