Susannah Sandlin

Morning, ma'am. I'm looking for Tommy Mason. Is he around?" Polite and professional, that was Senior Agent Broussard."Lord, what's that no-good sonofabitch done now? Wait, you ain't a cop; you're a game warden. "What'd he do, run over a fish?

What a voice. Deep, throaty, but not in a sexy way. In a haunted way. A voice full of heartbreak and ghosts.I won't go back, I won't go home,'Cause in this place, the dead still roam,'Cause this time, Whiskey Bayou won't let me go.

The bones said death was comin', and the bones never lied.Eva Savoie leaned back in the rocking chair and pushed it into motion on the uneven wide-plank floor of the one-room cabin. Her grand pere Julien had built the place more than a century ago, pulling heavy cypress logs from the bayou and sawing them, one by one, into the thick planks she still walked across ever day.She had never known Julien Savoie, but she knew of him. The curse that had stalked her family for three generations had started with her grandfather and what he'd done all those years ago.What he'd brought with him to Whiskey Bayou with blood on his hands.What had driven her daddy to shoot her mama, and then himself, before either turned forty-five.What had led Eva's brother, Antoine, to drown in the bayou only a half mile from this cabin, leaving a wife and infant son behind.What stalked Eva now.

There was something about a guy in a uniform most women found irresistible. Ceelie and Sonia had pondered this peculiar phenomenon over late-night glasses of moscato back in Nashville. They'd decided it had to be the belt and all the equipment that dangled from it when the guys walked, which not only was phallic but probably released extra sex pheromones into the air and turned women into nectar-seeking honeybees.

We can do slow and sweet later. I want you fast and rough, and I've been begging for a while now." She hooked a leg around his, bringing their bodies together as close as possible. "If you missed the memo, buddy, I've been trying to get you inside me half the day."With a low groan, he picked her up and lowered her to the bed, his mouth and tongue setting up a rhythm to match the fingers he slid inside her. "Not that," she said. "You. Now.""Bossy Cajun woman." He gave her a tousle-haired, lopsided grin as he rolled into the cradle of her thighs, positioning himself at her 'entrance...

Jena shook her head. __aul needs a life._ __aul needs a woman,_ Ceelie said.

Jena Sinclair had taught him a couple of things about himself in the past few minutes that he didn__ want to know. First, sometime in the past five years, a deep fatigue had wrapped itself around him _ not the fatigue that could be slept off with a soft bed and a warm blanket, but the fatigue caused by a tightened harness that restricted. That promised no end to long days and longer nights. A harness of his own making. Cole had realized another surprising thing too. Very surprising for the man who needed nothing and no one. He was lonely.

How __out you, Jena?_ He leaned closer, speaking in an exaggerated whisper. __e could go somewhere private. I know you probably got some scars from being shot, but you can__ see a scar in the dark, right?_ The dickwad was offering her a pity fuck in a darkened room?

Everybody has scars; some are more visible than others, that__ all. But anyone without a scar is someone I don__ want to know because it__ someone who doesn__ feel things deeply. You have to understand loss to recognize a gift when you see it._ He leaned over and kissed her again. __ou are my gift. I want to be yours, if you__l let me.

Since Paul wasn__ a big conversationalist__e was the anti-Mac, in other words, and today had been the longest she__ ever heard him speak in consecutive sentences__ena watched the scenery for a while. Then she decided to study the inside of Paul__ truck to see what she could learn about him.Technically, it was exactly like hers and Gentry__. It had a black exterior with a blue light bar across the top and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Enforcement Division logo on the doors.It was tech heavy on the front dash, just like theirs, with LDWF, Terrebonne Parish Sheriff__ Office, and Louisiana State Police Troop C radios, a laptop, a GPS unit, and a weather unit.In her truck and in Gentry__, the cords and wires were a colorful tangle of plastic and metal, usually with extra plugs dangling around like vines. Paul__ cords were all black, and he had them woven in pairs and tucked underneath the dash, where they neatly disappeared.She leaned over to see how he__ achieved such a thing, and noticed identical zip ties holding them in place.__inclair, I hate to ask, but what are you doing?__e sounded more bemused than annoyed, so she said, ____ psychoanalyzing you based on the interior of your truck.__e almost ran off the road. __hy?___our scintillating conversation was putting me to sleep.__is dark brows knit together but he seemed to have no answer to that.She turned around in her seat, as much as the seat belt allowed, and continued her study. Paul had a 12-gauge shotgun and a .223 carbine mounted right behind the driver__ seat, same as in her own truck. The mounts had hidden release buttons so the agents could get the guns out one-handed and quickly.But where her truck had a catch-all supply of stuff, from paper towels to zip ties to evidence bags to fast-food wrappers thrown in the back, Paul__ backseat was empty but for a zippered storage container normal people used for shoes. Each space held different things, all neatly arranged. Jena spotted evidence bags in one. Zip ties in another. Notebooks. Citation books. Paperwork. A spare uniform hung over one window, with a dry-cleaner__ tag dangling from the shirt__ top button.Good Lord. She turned back around.__hat did you learn?_ Paul finally asked.__ou__e an obsessive-compulsive neat freak,_ she said. __ccent on freak.

He__ danced around that story about why he__ moved to Terrebonne more smoothly than an Olympic skater on ice.

Jackson shrugged off Gentry__ hand. __ou want to worry about drugs in your parish, Agent Broussard, why don__ you check my sister__ bag? Or is it okay for your agents to be racing around with guns while they__e buzzing on painkillers? Is it okay for her to work four months after she tried to slit her wrists with a f**king utility knife?__ chill washed across Jena__ shoulders. Who was this person? The brother she__ known her whole life would never try to throw her under the squad car.__e aren__ talking about your sister, who, by the way, is a skilled law-enforcement agent who took two bullets in the line of duty a few months ago, son._ Gentry__ voice was low, but serious. __e__e talking about you, an unemployed twenty four year old who had almost an ounce of an illegal synthetic drug stashed in his bedroom, not to mention what__ probably still in your system. All we__ need is one simple blood test.__entry paused. __e__e talking about jail time, Jackson. Do you understand what kind of trouble you could be in?__ime seemed to stretch into slow motion. Jackson turned like an enraged devil, tightened his fingers around Gentry__ throat, and squeezed. He moved so fast that Gentry wasn__ able to get his hands up to protect himself and was left trying to breathe and pry Jacks__ hands off at the same time. Jackson wasn__ nearly as strong as Gentry, so it had to be the drugs. Jena had heard stories of users having almost superhuman strength.She ran toward them, but Adam got there first. He kicked Jacks__ legs out from beneath him and, by the time her brother hit the floor, Meizel was kneeling on his back, one hand pressing his head against the tile. The handcuffs clicked shut with a loud scrape of metal, and Meizel jerked Jacks to his feet. It was over in a matter of seconds.All four of them stood still for a moment. Until Jacks, his chin bleeding from hitting the floor, began spewing more accusations at Jena, laced with a liberal dose of f-bombs. Then life sped up again. Meizel held one of Jacks__ arms while Gentry held the other. The deputy had started his Miranda by the time they__ gotten Jacks out the front door, shoving him toward the patrol car none too gently.

You don__ like to talk to people, do you? I mean, slamming the door in my face was a clue that was hard to miss. I__ perceptive like that.

Jena took a seat on the sofa, and Cole found himself with another dilemma. Should he sit next to her or take the other chair? Such a decision shouldn__ feel momentous, but it did. It felt as momentous as a choice between the past and the future. It felt like a choice between friendship and maybe more than friendship. He sat next to her on the sofa.