Wolfsbane by William W. Johnstone

it is. For some strange stupid reason the Bauterre family has never been liked around here. I remember my father telling me—I was just a little boy, and he’d been drinking—that he wished someone would burn down that devil’s house.”
    â€œBut it’s such a beautiful home! I think it’s the grandest home in all of Ducros. But I didn’t think anyone had lived there for years, except the caretaker and that old servant.”
    â€œHaven’t. Something happened there a long time ago. Before I was born.”
    Betty sat down and began eating her own breakfast. “So, what happened?”
    Nick shrugged, wishing she would just eat her goddamned breakfast and shut her ratchet-jawed mouth. “I don’t know. Something awful, I guess.” A mean streak surfaced in him. “Why don’t you ask your friend, Stella Latour?”
    Her eyes narrowed as she recognized what was coming.
    â€œYeah,” Nick said, laughing in a nasty sort of way. “She ought to know all about it?”
    â€œThat’s not funny, Nick. I feel sorry for Stella. Just because her grandmother makes gris-gris and potions and people think she’s a witch—”
    â€œShe is a witch! Goddamned old bag. Sits out there in the swamps and mumbles old-time mumbo jumbo. And Stella’s momma claims to be a traiteur; heals people with herbs and potions and bullshit!”
    Betty rose from the table. “Maybe I’ll go see old Annie Metrejean; get me a gris-gris. Maybe get her to put a mojo on you.”
    â€œYeah,” he looked up. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Then you and Don Lormand wouldn’t have to sneak around every time you got the urge to fuck!”
    She slapped him.
    He was on his feet like a cat, swinging a balled fist. Betty ducked the blow, throwing up her arm to protect her face. The fist slammed against her upper arm, bruising it, the force of the blow knocking her to the shining kitchen floor.
    She looked up at her husband, defiance in her dark eyes. “I think maybe we’d better split the sheets, Nick. I’m getting tired of your double standard. I didn’t start the running around, remember? You did.”
    He kicked her on the buttocks with a boot. She bit her lip against the pain. “That’s my decision, Betty,” he told her, fighting back a very strong urge to kick her in the face. Smash her. Beat her into submission. “I bring the money into this house. Me! So if I wanna play around a little bit, that’s my right as a man. But I decide when and if we split. Until then, you do as I say. Understood?”
    She pressed her face against the coolness of tile and said nothing, expecting another kick from him. This wasn’t the first time he’d knocked her down. Once he had beaten her so badly she had been unable to leave the house for a week. Her hip and arm were beginning to throb with pain. Up until that point, she had never been unfaithful to her husband. Since then, all they had done was play the game of charades. But on this day, Betty made up her mind it wasn’t going to last much longer. Problem was, she was afraid of Nick, afraid of what he might do.
    She kept her eyes tightly shut, and then she heard him walk away, through the house, slamming things around. The banging of the front door seemed louder than usual. His car engine roared into life.
    Betty Jane Vincent pulled herself into a corner of the kitchen and wept.
    Â 
    â€œOh, Jesus Christ!” Pat moaned, collapsing on the damp ground. He had done as many pushups as his straining arms would allow, then tried to run a mile. Wobble a mile would be more like it. Now he was certain he was having a heart attack. “Why am I doing this?” he panted.
    But he could think of no logical explanation for his sudden burst of exercise mania.
    Pat rested for a time, then did ten more pushups and this time, instead of wobbling/running, slow jogged a