Fever Moon by Carolyn Haines

Author:Carolyn Haines [Haines, Carolyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, General, FICTION / Mystery and Detective / General, FICTION / Mystery and Detective / Historical
ISBN: 9780312351618
Google: xzHD4e-uPS4C
Amazon: B005I5EN0A
Publisher: Tyrus Books
Published: 2007-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

15

A stand of sugar cane stood tall in the morning sunlight as Raymond pulled into Leroy Baxter’s front yard. The cane was disconcerting. The men of the family should’ve been out chopping and harvesting. The first heavy frost was overdue.

The tarpaper and tin cabin was abnormally quiet. Raymond got out slowly, waiting for the sheriff to lead the way. Joe Como had felt it was his duty to talk to the missing girl’s mother. There had been no trace of Peat Moss Baxter in fifteen hours, and Joe was politician enough to want the family to see he was personally on the case.

“I want to take a look around the outhouse,” Raymond said. He wanted no part of the pain and grief that Joe would have to confront.

Joe gave him a helpless look, tucked his shirttail in, and walked to the front steps. He was knocking at the door as Raymond disappeared around the back of the cabin. Raymond heard the wail of Aimee Baxter and kept walking.

The outhouse was some twenty yards from the cabin, and he knew there would be nothing to find. Whatever tracks had once been there were gone. Leroy and a dozen men had brought Clifton’s dogs over to try to follow the trail of the missing child. Raymond had mentioned to no one the irony of Clifton most likely tracking his own sister with the very dogs that had savaged Henri. This latest development, though, made no sense.

Even in her fevered madness, he knew that Adele would not harm a helpless little girl. Yet Peat Moss Baxter was gone, and there seemed no other explanation for it. Talk all over town was that the loup-garou had taken another victim. It was only a matter of time before Joe demanded that Adele be brought back to the jail. So far, the sheriff had been too distraught over the disappearance of the child to think through the logical steps he should take. He’d assumed, like everyone else, that Adele was still weak and incapacitated at Madame Louiselle’s. But Joe would demand to question her, eventually. At that point, Raymond knew the town would be out of control. No one would listen to him when he tried to explain there was something else afoot in Iberia Parish.

The outhouse gave up no secrets, and he went back to the patrol car. In a moment, Joe came out, his armpits and back covered in sweat. The muffled sounds of Aimee’s sobbing settled around them as they drove away.

“Go to Madame Louiselle’s and get Adele. Bring her back to the jail.” Joe stared out the front window of the car as he spoke. “I tried to tell Aimee that Adele couldn’t have harmed her child, that she’s too sick to have done anything, but there’s a lot of crazy talk that she was on the loose last night. All those reports of something scuttling around town aren’t helping. Whatever bastard hung that scarecrow …”

Raymond drove without answering. Sunlight filtered through the trees, creating a flashing effect of black and white.

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