About the Book
Life in Barbeaux Bayou has been fairly normal for Raleigh Cheramie. Family gatherings, weekly visits from her dead Aunt, and waiting for the dead to need her help are all part of her not-so-average life. While volunteering at the local high school, Raleigh’s Traiteur-to-the-dead abilities are put to use when students begin summoning her to their watery graves.Raleigh must untwist the sordid stories of teenagers and uncover the secrets of a cold case to put an end to the untimely demise of Barbeaux’s young. But her own relationship woes with Mike have her distracted. Now she has to balance the will-they or will-they-not over Mike with solving murders and keeping the bodies from piling up. Can she figure out all the answers before it is too late for the young lives they were asked to help?
Excerpt from the Book
Chapter One
Raleigh Cheramie slurped down the smooth frothiness that had been a Bayou Mudslide and slid the glass toward the middle of the weathered tabletop. Donnie had been correct when he said she’d love their new chocolate sauce. As the longtime bartender at Roxy’s, he knew just how she liked her alcohol—disguised by chocolate.
“Earth to Raleigh,” Sheri said, snapping her fingers at her from across the table. “Are you even listening?”
“Uh-hmm.” Raleigh nodded, licking the last bit of sauce from her lips. “Party, guests, details, etc.”
“No.” Sheri frowned, her blue eye shadow crinkling at the corners. “Madison’s late again.”
Mike tapped an empty beer mug on the table and grinned. “Well, she is late to plan the anniversary party.”
Raleigh nodded, grateful for his arbitration and said, “Madison will be late to her own funeral, and if there was a chance of getting her down the aisle, she’d be late to her own wedding as well. We’d think something wrong with her if she showed up on time.”
Raleigh wasn’t worried—yet.
Looking around the bar, she noticed Roxy’s Thursday night regulars had grown younger. On the dance floor, the small group looked like teens with their distressed jeans and layered tops and leather bracelets. Barbeaux had more than its fair share of bars for a small town, so Raleigh’s group could go to Doug’s bar or Phil’s. Even The Seafood Camp may have a good happy hour crowd, but Roxy’s was where Mike had been coming since he’d returned to Barbeaux. He’d be hesitant to make the change.
Sheri sipped from her pink cocktail, cherry still soaking at the bottom. “I have it on reliable town gossip that Madison has turned quite punctual these days with her new business.”
Raleigh’s younger sister Madison had been irresponsible much of her life, and after a few recent personal mishaps, she’d attempted to get her life in order with a new, special events dating service. In true Madison fashion, she had to do it big and bold and, Raleigh could only hope, legal.
“She’ll get here to plan the party,” Mike said, frowning as he did his own sweep of the bar. “Can you imagine being married for sixty-three years?”
Raleigh grimaced. Sixty-three years was a foreign concept to her. She hadn’t been able to keep her last relationship going six months, and now Mike said they needed to give it some time to make sure she didn’t want him as some rebound relationship. She didn’t even know what that meant. How much time did you give it before you realized it wasn’t happening?
“Me’Maw says the secret is to have a sense of humor,” Raleigh said, wiping some chocolate sauce off the rim of the glass with her finger. “One has to have the ability to laugh at Paw’s hard head.”
Mike chuckled, his blond hair rustling as he shook his head. “And dance. That woman loves to dance with the old man. We must have music at this surprise party.”
A loud screech pierced the rumble of chatter and blaring music from the direction of the dance floor, and all three of them turned to see its origin.
Heading toward the exit from the dance floor, a young t-shirted man twisted the wrist of a girl as she tried to walk away from him. Squinting to see through the hazy smoke and dim lights, Raleigh recognized a streaky blonde chunk of hair through the brown braid falling over the young woman’s shoulder.
Mike rose from his barstool. “Is that Emma?”
Raleigh followed Mike to the dance floor group, recognizing the faces of the small group on the dance floor as six of the high school students in the journalism class that she and Mike had volunteered a few weeks ago to mentor. While working to get a newspaper program started as a community outreach program, Raleigh hadn’t discussed much about the students’ personal life, but she knew enough to know that the only way they had made it into the bar was with fake IDs, or Donnie had gone senile. At only twenty-six that was unlikely. Roxy and his dad ran a tight ship and would break his fingers one by one if they caught him serving alcohol to a minor. His father was old school with this bar, and Roxy could be a little rough around the edges. But this was her place, and she wouldn’t risk underage drinking.
Jeremy twisted Emma’s arm and yanked her toward him as Mike reached the edge of the group.
Mike nodded hello and then said, “What are y’all doing here?”
“Mr. Simmons?” Olivia’s eyes widened and then darted toward the door. Raleigh glared at Jeremy’s tight grip on Emma’s arm. “We didn’t imagine seeing you all in a place like this.”
“Dancing.” Caleb swallowed, his Adams apple bobbing. “We just wanted to dance. No harm done.”
Raleigh looked directly into Emma’s watery eyes. “Everything okay here?”
“Everything is fine, Miss,” Jeremy said. “No trouble here.”
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to hear if from Emma.” Raleigh maintained eye contact with Emma, whose eyes shifted around the group, not wanting to maintain contact with Raleigh. In class, Emma had exhibited a bubbly personality with an unfailing smile. Tonight, she appeared nervous, unable to pull away from Jeremy’s grip, and unable to look at Raleigh and Mike as the red outline of Jeremy’s fingerprints formed on her bare arm.
Jeremy’s bony chest puffed up. “What the hell you think is going on? We aren’t in the classroom if you missed it, Ms. C. This is a barroom.” He offered a forced laugh. “Nice place for a teacher to hang out though. Great role models you two are.”
Mike stepped closer to Raleigh, who stood across from the two teenage lovebirds. “Calm down, Jeremy.” Mike had hung back, waiting to see what unfolded. He always played observer first, while Raleigh’s game plan always involved rushing in and allowing it to slam her in the face.
Jeremy faked laugh again. “I am calm. I don’t need you two. We’ll get out of here before you become snitches and rat us out or something.” Jeremy yanked his head in the direction of the others. “Funny how you two try to act cool and shit in class, but you’re just as out of touch as the rest of them.”
Jeremy pulled Emma by her arm as he stalked toward the exit.
“Emma,” Raleigh called out, “do you need a ride?”
Emma looked back, her lips twitching. “I will be okay, Ms. C.”
The others followed them out the door. The red-haired, penciled-in eyebrow girl from the second desk stopped and patted Raleigh on the shoulders. “Don’t worry. Jeremy’s just a hot head, but he’ll calm down in five minutes.”
“Look after her Olivia,” Mike said, nodding at Caleb and the other two boys that Raleigh always confused. One was Seth and the other was Ethan. Raleigh could never get their names straight as they both had dark hair, brown eyes, and stood at 5’10”.
Raleigh watched the door swing closed behind them. “Do you think we should go after them?” An uneasy feeling swirled in the pit of her stomach, and she was certain it wasn’t the Mudslide or the new chocolate sauce swirling in there.
“Nah.” Mike shook his head as he turned back toward the interior of the bar. “They won’t listen to us. Do you remember what it was like being sixteen?”
Raleigh cringed. “Yep.”
Sheri watched as they returned to their table. She shook her head with a smile on her face.
“Donnie and I had a chat about the young crowd in this bar lately,” Sheri said before tipping her glass back against her lips.
Mike nodded as Donnie cleared the glasses from their table. “Next time you may want to confiscate those fake IDs.”
Donnie looked at the door, a frown twisting on his full lips. “I thought something looked off about the plastic.” He shook his head. “Thursday nights are the worse, you know?”
Raleigh’s cellphone buzzed on the bar. She glanced down at the screen and saw Madison Cheramie flash on the glass.
“Uh-oh.” She uttered, frowning at the name. Madison never called. She only texted.
“I’m having the worst night,” Madison exclaimed. “Is Mike still with you?”
“Of course, Madison.” Raleigh tapped her fingers on the bar. “We’ve been waiting for you for an hour.”
Truthfully, Raleigh didn’t know how long they’d been waiting, but she tried to hold her sister accountable for some of her behaviors. Otherwise, she might slip back into the days of dancing on bars and providing illegal services at illicit parties. Someone had to keep her on track.
“I know.” Madison blew out air over the phone. “I have a flat tire. Do you know how to change a tire? Because I can’t even figure out what end of the tool I’m supposed to use.”
A tinge of guilty conscience tugged at her. She may need to start offering Madison the benefit of the doubt. “Where are you?”
“I’m on that stretch of highway near the canal, right before the bridge.”
Madison’s voice was distant as if a big expanse absorbed it. She must be standing outside of the car on a stretch of highway that contained trees and few passersby.
Raleigh motioned to Mike, and he perked up with raised eyebrows. “Mike and I are on our way.”
She briefly explained the situation as she slapped a ten-dollar bill on the counter for Donnie, and they gave Sheri hurried good-byes with promises to reconvene the party planning meeting.
Moments later she slid into the Jeep’s passenger seat, pulled her bag from the floorboard, and retrieved the sweater she’d stuffed in there earlier.
Shrugging into the sweater, she glanced toward Mike as he started the engine. “Ever notice how you are always rescuing a Cheramie sister?”
Mike chuckled. “You two do seem to get into plenty messes. I can’t say it’s all bad playing the hero though.”
Raleigh laughed. “Hero, huh?” At first sight, Mike didn’t strike anyone as a hero with his shaggy blond hair and tall, lanky build. As the quiet observant type, he was more of a rock; the one there waiting in a crisis to offer strength. The kind of man like her paw. As she waited in angst to see what their next step in this relationship dance was going to be, she noticed the similarities between the two—both men she counted on to be there at all levels of life crisis.
Ten minutes later, the Jeep’s headlights illuminated Madison’s compact silver coupe on the side of the deserted back road. Mike U-turned in the middle of the road and eased the Jeep into park behind the car’s bumper. Madison’s car door opened, and she walked to the back to meet them at the trunk of the car.
Madison huffed as she opened the trunk. “You would think that if a car is only a few months old, you could rely on it not getting a flat tire.”
“You may have picked up a nail.” Mike searched the trunk, his hand feeling around the black carpet. “Getting the spare tire out of these new cars is as difficult as changing it.”
Returning to the Jeep, Raleigh shuffled through items in the glove compartment until she clasped down on a small black metal flashlight. Returning to Mike and Madison, she shined the beam of light to create more light and to aid the dim glow of the trunk light. Mike finally found the indentation to lift up the compartment to reach the spare tire.
Madison jogged in place for warmth, her thin white blouse offering little protection against the cool night air. “Dad wants to know if you want to go in together for Mom’s birthday gift.”
For a moment, Raleigh was taken aback and had to recall her mother’s upcoming birthday. Recently, she’d been so focused on her impending thirtieth birthday in April that she hadn’t given anyone else’s birthday much thought. Not to mention, she let Madison handle her parents, and she handled their grandparents. Divide and conquer seemed the best tactic when her parents didn’t really express warm thoughts about having her in the neighborhood permanently.
“Sounds good,” Raleigh said, as a rustling of leaves and branches came from the thick underbrush of a mess of foliage and pine trees five feet beyond the passenger doors. She flashed the light in the direction and only caught the slight swaying of thorny leaves.
Mike fiddled in the trunk. “I’m sure it’s a coon or something.”
Madison laughed nervously. “Maybe we could wait in the Jeep?”
Mike grunted as he pulled the spare tire to the edge of the trunk. He appeared focused on the tire, ignoring Madison’s typical selfish comment. “Raleigh, I have a jack in the back of the Jeep.”
Handing the flashlight off to Madison, Raleigh walked around to the back of the Jeep to retrieve the jack. Not a single vehicle had driven along this stretch of the highway since they’d pulled off here. Madison could have been stranded out here for hours if her phone battery had been dead, which was pretty common these days. Her sister had a knack for running the battery down and not having a charger handy. As she opened the small door, a static electricity charge jolted through her. Reaching out with her arm, Raleigh steadied herself against the door, but the feeling did not return. Internally, the sharpness subsided, leaving only adrenaline surging in its wake as recognition occurred.
Somewhere, something was happening.
Nothing happened again though. She looked around the wilderness of the area with its overgrown brush, the towering pine trees, and the smell of decaying foliage and it all felt sharper. Her senses reaching out, waiting for what was to come.
Because as Traiteur to the dead, someone had buzzed momentarily into the part of her brain that lay empty, waiting for their last moments on earth to visit her. She could have seconds, minutes, or hours.
Raleigh grabbed the car jack stuffed in the right corner next to a box of ceramic tile that must have been left over from his side hustle and then slammed the door closed.
Handing the jack to Mike, who barely glanced up as he began working on the tire, Raleigh leaned against the front of the Jeep and waited.
Madison jabbered on about some party that was proving a nightmare to plan, and Raleigh went in and out with her attention, her anxiety growing as each minute ticked by.
Thirty minutes later, while Raleigh watched Mike lower the flat tire into the trunk, the dark spots grew in her eyes until nothing but blackness remained.
Moments ticked by. Her eyelids felt droopy, difficult to keep open. Blinking against the heaviness and the blurriness, she began to feel the weight of water pushing at her. Raleigh fought to inhale as the realization that she was submerged in water crushed against her like a wind tunnel. With sharp turns of her head to either side, she noticed long blades of grass swirling in the water, and she could feel nibbles, sharp teeth gnawing at her side.
A silvery orb of light broke through her blurriness from the water surface. The moon. Her hand longed to reach up toward the iridescent shine, for she felt if she could just lift her arm, she could break the surface of the water. Long hair floated, fanning her face, mixing with the brown of the blades of grass dancing to the lapping water.
Brown hair with a touch of blonde.
With a painful inhale from deep in her lower abdominal, Raleigh emerged slumped against the front of the Jeep. Through slow shallow breaths, she attempted to calm her racing pulse. She hated dirty, muddy water. Why did it always have to be water? Mike’s arm held gingerly onto her elbow, standing near enough to catch her if she fell from the journey to the dead’s last moments. She’d grown better at not damaging her own body when she left it behind to experience the newly departed’s last few moments, but it still hadn’t become an easy journey in any respect.
Mike’s eyes were soft with concern. “Where are we going?”
Raleigh swallowed against the panic rising in her esophagus. “I couldn’t tell where she was.”