Say You Love Me

“Come with me while they finish up,” Detective Dubois suggested.

“I’m all right here.”

“It’ll do you good to get out for a while. Besides, I haven’t had dinner and there’s a quaint Cajun cafе near here. We can discuss the magazine.”

“I’ve already told you everything I know,” she said defiantly. “And I’ve eaten dinner.”

Detective Dubois touched her arm gently. “Come on. They have great desserts at this restaurant. You can have coffee and tell me more about yourself.”

Exactly what she didn’t want to do.

“I don’t need a babysitter, Detective. I’ll be fine alone.”

He angled his head toward her. “What’s wrong? You aren’t afraid of me, are you, Britta?”

She stiffened. “No, don’t be ridiculous.” Hadn’t she learned long ago not to draw attention to herself?

His dark eyes pierced her, probing.

Unnerved, she nodded, knowing the only way to quiet his suspicions was to appease him. He couldn’t seduce information out of her—not if she didn’t let him. “All right. But I intended to search those letters tonight to see if this guy might have written to me before.”

“You can review the letters tomorrow.” His voice softened. “It’s been a long day already.”

He instructed the others that he would return within an hour and pressed a hand to her waist, guiding her outside. The gesture triggered another round of nerves. He was so strong that she felt safe by his side, yet not safe at all. She couldn’t allow herself to depend on any man, much less Jean-Paul Dubois. He might stir desires and hungers that could never be sated. Might awaken a sexual beast within her….

Not something she could allow to happen with a cop.

The sultry evening air aroused another longing inside her, one that conjured images of a real date, of strolling hand in hand with a lover, listening to the sexy blues and jazz music wafting around them while the Mississippi lapped softly against the bank.

“We’re here.” He stopped at a small cafе that had cropped up after the hurricane and gestured for her to enter. Dubois Diner. 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.