Possess Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

mind racing. She would suspect Rousseau of slipping something in her drink but she hadn’t had one. Maybe he was a hypnotist. That might explain the illusory orgy she’d just witnessed. Participated in. Explain why his eyes had seemed to glow with an unearthly light.
    Whatever the reason, she had to know. Her desire to have a mad affair with the café owner hadn’t changed, but now her curiosity was as strong as her need. “Define trouble .”

CHAPTER 3

    “POSSESSED? LIKE THE EXORCIST POSSESSED?”
    “More like Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost possessed. Sort of. Look, voodoo is my family’s religion, not mine. It’s hard to explain.” Michelle had her feet propped on the desk by the window, blocking the view of Rousseau’s apartment and twirling a letter opener in her hand.
    Allegra sat on the fat, soft sofa bed in the living room, a book open in her lap, unable to keep her lips from twitching at her friend’s announcement. “You really don’t like him, do you? Only you could come up with something this creative. It’s those paintings you’ve been doing lately. All those ghosts and graveyards and demons. Maybe the paint fumes have gone to your head.”
    Michelle made a face. “Laugh it up, but I’m serious. Mama gave me that book when I . . . a while back. She knows about Rousseau’s case. He even came to her once, but she says she’s not the one who can help him.”
    Michelle’s mother was Mambo Toussaint, a voodoo priestess who ran a small shop on Royal Street, selling charms and special oils, giving the occasional reading. She was the genuine article, a fascinating and loving woman. She’d given Allegra an oil to put in her bath that worked better than all the strange liniments her therapists had tried on her knee.
    But possessed? They thought Rousseau was hosting a spirit called a—she looked down at the book—a Loa? “Rousseau believes it, too? So the nickname Bone Daddy is actually . . . ?”
    “The name of the Loa, yes.”
    “A sex Loa.”
    Michelle shifted, getting up from the chair and picking up her workout bag. “I know it sounds crazy. There isn’t a day that goes by that I wish I didn’t know any of this existed. But it does.” She took a step toward the door. “I have a kickboxing lesson to get to. Just read the book. Mama put notes in the margins.”
    “Michelle?” Allegra tilted her head to study her roommate. “Are you okay? I mean other than being stressed at my recent crush.”
    “I’m fine, Allegra. Just busy. Thanks. Read that book, especially chapter eleven.” She walked out the door, and Allegra fell back onto the pillows with a sigh.
    Her friend was lying. Allegra wasn’t so caught up in her own turmoil that she couldn’t see Michelle had changed lately. Distracted, edgy, keeping herself so busy she never had time to breathe, let alone relax.
    She understood Michelle’s dedication to her job. Her work for New Schools for New Orleans, and her help rebuilding the charter program’s art department, had been amazing.
    When Allegra had first known Michelle, she’d just been getting a degree to escape from a town full of interfering family and bead-craving tourists while she worked on creating the perfect masterpiece. Now she was a leader in the education community. Allegra couldn’t be prouder of all she’d accomplished. But it didn’t seem to satisfy her. Chelle had to keep moving.
    All those defense classes. Kickboxing. Karate. She’d even been learning capoeira, a Brazilian form of martial arts that looked like dancing. She envied Michelle’s energy, but though they lived in the same two-room apartment, she barely saw her.
    And what she did see concerned her. Allegra turned her head to the wall lined with Michelle’s canvases. The nearest and most recent was disturbing. Three men, their features distorted and grotesque, their faces covered in blood. All three had ghostly figures behind them, figures whose arms thrust inside the men’s bodies, as if guiding them