BAYOU HEAT

Cerridwen Press
Release Date: December 17, 2009
Genre: Romantic Suspense

Order at Cerridwen Press

Eris DeBose is considered an oddball even in a town full of misfits. She’s given up on having a normal life and has embraced her differences. Her belief in the supernatural and her ability to follow auras are about to be tested as she tracks her friend’s killer through the streets and back alleys of the French Quarter.

Rob Jackson, security agency owner and former FBI agent, grew up running the streets of New Orleans. The hardships of living on the streets, was nothing compared to life at home with an alcoholic mother. Despite having grown up in a town famous for voodoo and magic, he is a man who deals in cold hard facts. That is until he’s hired to protect Eris from a serial killer, who seems to know their every move.

Eris and Rob play a deadly game of hide and seek with the killer and must learn to believe in each other’s abilities before its too late. However, the greatest stretch of their beliefs could be in learning to follow their own hearts.

Eris kept her feet moving and refused to look behind her. The man could go find a very high cliff and jump for all she cared. He was stubborn, narrow minded and controlling.

She laughed at the thought of living in a black and white world, and then thought how cold and lonely that must be. She lost the thread of Debra’s aura she was following and silently cursed herself for letting the man distract her. After a few seconds of intense concentration and searching, she picked it up again and continued down the street.

The aura circled back and before she knew it, she was back on Bourbon Street headed toward Esplanade. Several minutes later, she crossed Esplanade and entered an older residential neighborhood that had seen better times forty years ago. Twenty minutes later, Debra’s aura became more and more confused as she approached a rather rundown house.

Eris stopped on the sidewalk and studied the building. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that this place was a crack house and Debra was either here or had been here recently. She lost the clear connection she had to the girl, as Debra’s essence became more confused and agitated. It was hard enough tracing a person when they left a clean path to follow; this wasn’t one of those times. There were a lot of factors that could muddle a person’s residual spirit, not the least of which was drugs, she thought, studying the old house. She swiped at a bead of sweat running down the side of her face. July was a scorcher in New Orleans, she thought absently as she finished off her now warm water.

Opening her senses to the unseen world around her, she tried to get a better, firmer fix on Debra. The onslaught of multiple feelings hit her hard, causing her to stagger back. These personalities were jittery, agitated, needy and hurting. Immediately she felt unbalanced and nauseated. Taking deep, cleansing breaths, she bent over and placed her hands on her knees for support. It was like being on a cup and saucer ride at the carnival with a nasty hangover. Eris was on the verge of being sick when a warm rough hand touched the bare skin at the small of her back. Instantly she felt comforted and the nausea subsided. For a moment, she let herself enjoy the rare feeling of being calmed.

“What’s wrong?”

She jumped away from the gentle touch and the deep baritone voice like a hot iron had branded her. Whirling around, she faced the man whose touch made her feel safe, but whose presence made her want to pull out her hair. “Let me guess, you couldn’t find Intempo and, being a male, refused to ask for directions?”

For a few seconds, Rob’s face showed genuine concern for her discomfort, but her words sufficiently wiped that expression away. Now, he looked more than peeved at her and she could deal with that.

“I know exactly where Intempo is located, considering I’ve visited it a few times.” His words were short and clipped.

That didn’t surprise her at all; he looked like a high priced playboy. “So, why are you here and not there?”

“Because I have an assignment to do whether I like it or not.”

“Ah. The responsible type.”

“Very much so. You on the other hand go running off without thinking twice about it.”

“True, but there is nothing wrong with that.” She put her hands on her hips and glared up at the man. Boy, he sure was tall.

“Didn’t say there was anything wrong with that. If you would have stayed put another ten seconds we wouldn’t have needed to walk in this heat and we wouldn’t both be standing here looking like two melted ice—cream cones.”

“How so?”

“We could have retrieved my car from where we left it.”

“Then I would have been stuck doing things your way.”

“True, but then we would have gone to the club and found out from one of the girls that Debra’s been hanging with a guy named Jerome Broussard. Then, after a phone call or two, we would have come up with an address for the guy, which happens to be on the other side of town.”

The smile was gone from his face and she knew he wasn’t happy with her, but she refused to back down. “How do you happen to know all of this?”

“Because I did all of that using my cell phone as we were hiking across the Quarter.”

Eris considered his words for a few moments, then dismissed them. He didn’t understand how she worked. “His address might be on the other side of town, but Debra is here.”

“I hope you’re right. Because soft—shoeing it back across town in heat pushing one—hundred degrees isn’t my idea of fun.”

She hoped she was right also, because she couldn’t get a good read on Debra and really didn’t want to face this man if she was wrong. Maybe the extreme heat was distorting her ability. Once again, she’d gotten so involved in following someone’s essence path she hadn’t paid attention to the world around her. Now that he mentioned it, she noticed the way her clothes clung to her damp body making her uncomfortable. She could only imagine how he felt wearing a suit and tie.

She turned toward the house. “Well then, let’s go find out.”