Wild Man's Curse (Wilds of the Bayou #1) by Susannah Sandlin Page A

cross-legged on the bed in the corner. “Anyway, thanks for coming. Have a seat. You can pull over those dining chairs if you want. I needed to ask you some questions about my Tante Eva.”
    Gentry gave himself a mental slap upside the head. He’d gotten tongue-tied around a sexy woman and forgotten why they were here. This was far from a lighthearted visit.
    He pulled two chairs away from the small round table near the kitchenette and carried them into the middle of the room. This whole place was about the size of his living room, and his house in Montegut was small.
    “We’ll answer whatever we can, but I’m not sure there’s anything we can add to what the sheriff’s office told you. They’re in charge of the investigation.” He sat on one of the chairs, wincing at a stain on one rung of the ladder-back. Looked like blood, although the place smelled like Pine-Sol. “Did the parish clean this place up for you?”
    “Hell no. I’ve been on my hands and knees scrubbing since I got here three days ago.” Ceelie looked around, and Gentry noted where her gaze stopped—wherever dark spots remained visible. Blood had soaked into the old wood. He wasn’t sure she could ever get rid of the stains.
    “To be fair, the sheriff’s office offered to find someone to clean it for me, but I felt it was something I needed to do for my aunt.” She tugged on her braid. Scraped a palm across her thigh. Moving. Restless. “I hadn’t seen her in a long time, and that’s on me. But I remember coming here a lot as a kid, and even though it was old and rundown, she kept this place immaculate. She’d be horrified to know what it looked like when . . . when you found her.”
    Gentry recognized regret and guilt woven into that amazing voice. He knew both emotions intimately.
    “Are you planning to stay here long?” Jena asked. “Do you need anything?”
    Ceelie shook her head. “I was surprised to find that Tante Eva had a little money tucked away in a jar on the kitchen counter, and that ramblin’ wreck of a truck in the backyard still runs. I’ve been able to pick up what I need. As for how long I’ll be here?” She shrugged. “Depends on how long it takes to settle the estate. It’s giving me a chance to evaluate whether I want to go back to Nashville or make a change.”
    Gentry remembered seeing several hundred dollars, maybe more, scattered around on the counter when he’d found the body, and it had been one of the oddest parts of the scene to him. Even if robbery wasn’t the motive, it took a certain kind of obsession—or a personal kind of rage—to leave money behind. Human instinct would always be to take the cash.
    At least it had given Eva’s niece something to live on, and if Ceelie needed her great-aunt’s money, it told him her career in Nashville hadn’t been going well. Which made him feel even guiltier for making assumptions about her.
    He swatted at a mosquito on his arm, ignoring his partner’s raised eyebrow. “Well, what can we tell you, Ms. Savoie?”
    “Call me Ceelie.” She got up and walked to the small table in front of the window, the one that still held the voodoo-ritual items he’d spotted the morning he’d found the body. Opening a drawer, she pulled out a tall, textured candle and a box of matches. “Citronella,” she said, striking the match and setting the candle on the table. “For the mosquitoes. Agent Broussard, would you start at the beginning and tell me everything you saw the morning you found my aunt?”
    He huffed out a breath. “Ms. Savoie—Ceelie—are you sure you want to hear it? I’m sure the sheriff’s deputies—”
    “Humor me.” Ceelie’s tone was friendly, but firm. “It makes no sense to me that someone would murder an eighty-year-old woman who lived in a glorified fish camp in the middle of nowhere. No sense whatsoever. You might remember a detail that sparks a memory or means something to me that didn’t mean anything to the