Shadows (Bayou Magic 1)

“Your guess is as good as mine. I smell something dirty, but I can’t prove it, and what’s done is done.”

“All of that work. For nothing?”

“He’s going away,” he reminds me. “Just not where you want him to go.”

“I want him fucking dead.” My voice is low and hard. “And I’d like to be the one to do it.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Peters says. “Any news on the case you’re working?”

“Nothing significant. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Do that.”

He hangs up, and I squeeze the bridge of my nose, take a deep breath, and pull my shit together before walking back into the restaurant.

“Everything okay?” Brielle asks when I sit next to her.

“Fine.” I clear my throat and reach for my water, wishing for something much stronger. Mallory’s eyes narrow on me from across the table.

She’s probably reading my mind. I have no idea how this stuff works, but I expect her to call me out on my lie.

Instead, she says, “Do you have siblings, Cash?”

“One brother. He’s a cop here in New Orleans.”

“Oh, that’s awesome,” she replies.

“My sister-in-law Kate’s best friend is married to a cop,” Beau says. “Asher Smith.”

Brielle and I look at each other in surprise.

“Do you know him?” Beau asks.

“Actually, yes. We’re working with him on a case,” I reply.

“Well, he’s a good man,” Beau replies. “I trust him implicitly.”

“I agree,” Brielle says, surprising me. I actually got the feeling she didn’t like Asher much. “I don’t know him well, but he seems like a decent person and a good cop.”

“How’s that all going?” Mallory asks.

“Slow,” I admit. “Frustratingly slow.”

“It won’t always,” she says.

“If you know something about this, Mallory, I need you to tell me.”

“I don’t,” she says, shaking her head. “I wish I did. I wish I could see it all clearly, but I only see flashes of things. Like Brielle, I see the dead. I’m a medium. And if I touch a person, I feel what they feel, and I can see their thoughts.”

“That must be inconvenient,” I say to Beau with a grin.

“I can’t read him,” Mallory says, leaning her head on Beau’s shoulder. “It’s one of the reasons I knew he was for me. But I assure you, if I knew the answers you seek, I’d tell you right away. What he’s doing is pure evil.”

“Thank you,” I reply.

We spend another hour with small talk and finish our meals. After we’ve said goodbye to the other couple, Brielle and I set off for the police station. It’s time for me to check in with Asher.

“What happened?” Brielle asks.

“To what?”

“You took that call, and when you came back, something was different. You covered it up well, but I know you well enough by now to see that something’s off. What happened on that call? Is your mom okay?”

“It wasn’t Felicia,” I reply, taking a deep breath. It’s time Brielle knew the truth of what happened before. Of the demons I carry. “It was Peters, my boss in Dallas, like I said.”

“Do you need to go back to Texas?”

Her hand tightens on mine at the thought.

“No, he doesn’t need me there. Do you remember when I told you that I’m here on a forced vacation?”

“Sure.”

“I was assigned to a particularly difficult case in Maine six weeks ago. There was a killer up there, Rodney Simpson. He was taking men and sexually assaulting them, killing them, and then burying them in his backyard.”

“Holy shit,” she whispers.

“Statistically, a male serial killer who kills other men isn’t that common. Yes, there are some out there—Dahmer, Gacy, the Candy Man, to name a few—but it’s more commonly women or children, for many reasons that I won’t bore you with right now. All we knew was that we had six men missing in Maine, and most likely a serial killer on our hands.

“The interesting thing was, he didn’t just take men who were vacationing or on business from out of town. Yes, he did take a few of those, but he also snatched men who lived right there in the small town. When that happened more than once, it clued us all in that we likely had a multiple murderer.

“My unit was assigned, and we dug right in, finding more clues than local law enforcement had uncovered. Not because they did a bad job, we just had more experience and more tools at our disposal. I mean, a tiny town like that in Maine can rarely boast even a single murder, let alone something of that magnitude.

“It was frustrating, though, because he kept eluding us. He was too calm and too detached to make a mistake.”

“But he eventually made one, right?”

“Yes. Well, no, but he did get arrogant. He decided to start playing with us. He made us part of the game. He sent letters threatening the members of the team. Said he was going to take one of us and make an example of us. Of course, we took the threat seriously, but—”