Shadows (Bayou Magic 1)

So much blood.

And fear.

The girls can’t see me. I try to talk to them, to get their attention, but they can’t hear me. I need to ask them questions.

Where are they? How did they get here? Who brought them here?

Without those answers, this is pointless.

“Who are you?”

I’m surprised when another girl glances up and talks to me.

“I’m Brielle.”

Her eyes widen, and her lip quivers. “He’s going to kill us. He’s going to kill all of us. And then he’s going to kill you.”

“Who is he?”

She shakes her head. “He’s the devil.”Chapter ElevenCash“I dreamed,” she says as she walks into the kitchen from the bedroom. Her hair is a mess of dark waves around her beautiful face, her blue eyes look sleepy and tormented.

I’ve only known her a week, and yet I miss the happy look she had in her eyes before all of this started. She was quick to smile. To flirt.

Now, it seems she’s wrapped in an invisible, heavy blanket.

I’m going to do my best to get her back to the happy woman I first met.

“Talk to me.” I pull her onto my lap, and she reaches for my coffee, making me smile. I don’t mind sharing it with her. Hell, I’ll share my life with her if she’ll have me.

That thought shocks the hell out of me.

My job is too intense to have a family. It’s best to be single, without ties to anyone.

But now that Brielle’s in my life, I can’t imagine it without her.

“More walking,” she says with a sigh and leans her head on my shoulder. “But this time, I was in the room where he holds them.”

“What?”

“He has four right now. One saw me, but I didn’t get much information out of her.”

“So, you don’t know where he’s holding them?”

“No. And it pisses me off, Cash.”

“Well, it doesn’t make me happy, either. I have to be in the office in about an hour.”

“I’m coming with you.” She kisses my cheek, then hops off my lap and sets to work making her own cup of coffee. “I need to talk to Asher.”

“You don’t want me to talk to him?”

“No. I have questions, and I need to prove to him that I’m not a whack job.”

“I think if that was the case, he wouldn’t have asked for my help,” I remind her as I slide my hands over her hips and around her waist to hug her from behind. “You smell good.”

“Neroli oil,” she says, smiling up at me. “It’s good for anxiety. And, I’ll be honest, this whole thing has me more than a little anxious.”

“You wouldn’t be human if it didn’t.” I kiss her hair, then turn her in my arms so I can pull her in for a strong hug. “Maybe you need a break. I’ll see if Andy and Felicia can join us for dinner.”

“A distraction might be nice, especially after being in the bayou yesterday.”

It was an experience I never want to repeat. I was honest when I told her that very little surprises me.

And yet, I was shocked as hell.

The living conditions were foul. The woman who birthed the three girls I’ve come to care about was…sick. That’s the best word I can use for it. She is mentally ill for sure, and that’s probably the root of the neglect of her children. But the fact that she admitted to killing her husband means that I’m under obligation to have her arrested.

Though it wouldn’t matter.

She’s already locked up, undergoing a far more brutal punishment than the government could ever throw at her.

“My sisters warned me not to take you there.”

“Why?”

She leans back to quirk her brow. “Come on. You know you want to dump me after seeing where I came from.”

“Dump you? No. I don’t want to do that.” I kiss her forehead and make slow circles on her back with my palm. “I have about a billion questions, but I don’t want to lose you.”

“I can probably answer your inquiries.”

“I think the one person who could answer the bulk of them the best is too mentally ill to do so. She belongs in an institution.”

“I know.” She rubs her face and then leans her forehead on my chest. “I know she does. But she’ll never willingly leave that house. It has its claws in her.”

“She admitted to killing your father.”

“She did kill him.” She looks up at me again. “And he continued tormenting my sisters and me for the better part of a decade afterwards. Speaking of him, I need to know what Daphne saw when she touched the roses yesterday. Whatever it was, it freaked her out.”

“What made him stop tormenting you?”

“Millie met Miss Sophia, and she helped us get rid of him. He beat us repeatedly when he was alive, and then he taunted us from beyond the grave.”