Blood on the Bayou: A Cafferty & Quinn Novella by Heather Graham Read Free Book Online Page B

definition.” She paused. “The mind is powerful. We all know that. If you believe that you have an incredible power granted to you by the devil, or simple evil, can you make it so? Perception can be a form of truth.”
    “You’re right about that,” Danni murmured. “So what do we do? Search the swamp. Search the streets for someone with a silver wolf’s head cane? Or look to the reasons people become evil? Natasha, two young women were on the tour boat that came upon the first victim. The one young lady was convinced that she saw a rougarou on her hotel balcony.”
    “We can believe we see many things,” Natasha said.
    “But there was blood on the balcony that matched the blood of the first victim. Detective Jake Larue just called Quinn. Whoever killed that first victim came into the French Quarter as a rougarou .”
    Natasha sat in silence for a minute. Then she lifted one of the books from the stack at her side.
    “This is on the murders from twenty years ago. There was one young lady named Genevieve LaCoste. She was a shopkeeper in the Garden District. She’d been out with a boyfriend to Honey Swamp the day she was killed. She’d come back to the city, but was found the next day, dead, in the swamp. Maybe, just maybe, this rougarou sees what he wants and comes after it. Your young lady was very lucky to escape him.”
    “She wasn’t alone. She was with a friend.”
    “Maybe the rougarou expected her to be alone. Or maybe whoever was pretending to be a rougarou was startled away by her screams or something from the street,” Natasha suggested. “Read more of the book. Twenty years ago wasn’t the first time people were found ripped apart in the swamp. It happened eighty years and about a hundred and fifty years ago, too. There was nothing about it with rhyme or reason, just every twenty or fifty years, that kind of thing. But it happened first with Count D’Oro, and it’s happened again and again through the years.”
    “No rhyme or reason,” Danni mused. “Except that, there has to be a reason. We just don’t know what it is yet.”
    “Evil.”
    “And evil is usually personified. There’s an evil man out there. We have to find out who he is.” Danni rose. “I think I’m going to check on the value of my property.”
    “What?” Natasha asked.
    “Pay a visit to a realtor,” Danni said. “Meet me back at my place in about two hours?”
    “I’ll be there.”
     
    * * * *
     
    Father John Ryan lived in the rectory by the church.
    He stood to almost Quinn’s height, leanly muscled, bald, and equipped with sharp gray eyes that seemed to quickly assess people and problems. Born in Ireland, he’d served in the heart of Africa and various other places where he’d acquired knowledge about many cultures, peoples, and religions. Not a man to judge, instead more one to evaluate and appreciate.
    “I was expecting you,” the priest told Quinn. “And Wolf, of course.” Father Ryan greeted the mammoth dog with affection. “I assumed there would be no music tonight. So what do you know so far? I’m assuming you’re here because of the murders in the swamps? They just announced that a second body was found.”
    Quinn nodded.
    But before he could speak, Father Ryan said, “Now I get it. You found the second victim.”
    He nodded. “What do you know about the Wolfman murders twenty years ago? Were you here then?”
    “I’d just arrived in New Orleans,” Ryan said. “And yes, I do remember. It was all horrible. One of the young women killed was local. I presided at her funeral.”
    “Tell me about her.”
    “Genevieve. I’d met her only briefly. She was such a beautiful young lady. Striking in every way. She ran a shop in the Garden District and grew up here. She went all the way through Loyola, a stellar student in the business school. Her shop was wonderful and she was eager to take more classes. To do good things. Her death was tragic, and the police were determined. But it was one of