Chapter 2
Two
Erielle sipped from the overpriced plastic water bottle Duval had pressed her to purchase as she walked down the road to the biker bar, hoping someone with the authority to hire her was on site.
She could have driven, she supposed, but she wanted to see if the distance was walkable.
She probably wouldn’t want to walk home in the middle of the night, not this close to the bayou.
Ghosts aside, she didn’t want to encounter any wildlife out here on her own.
Walking here hadn’t been the best idea, either, because her blouse and jeans were sticking to her as she crested the rise and saw the bar at the edge of the trees.
A couple of battered vehicles and a big truck sat in the crushed shell lot. The screen door was open, and she could see shadows moving within,, so she crossed to it and tugged. The bottom of the door dragged along the ground, but she muscled it open and stepped into the darkness.
Whew, the decrepit outside was nothing compared to the inside, and with no air conditioning, to boot. Well. A window unit rattled in the corner, but it sure wasn’t making any difference in the close space.
Dusty neon signs and mounted game fish lined the wood-paneled walls.
The bar wasn’t too long, and had a hole in the wood about the size of a man’s head.
Behind the bar was a single line of alcohol, and four taps.
A few tables scattered about on the wood floor, two pool tables to the other side of what she realized now was an L-shaped building.
Two men, one in a long plaid shirt over a tank top, and the other in a t-shirt, were playing pool, and watching her warily.
She honestly didn’t know if a waitress was necessary in a place this small.
The bartender glowered at her, hands braced on the bar. “You lost?”
She squared her shoulders. She would not be bullied. She’d come up in kitchens with more intimidating head chefs than this burly bearded dude before her.
“I’m looking for a job. Waitress, or bartender.” Tending bar with so few options shouldn’t be that hard.
His scowl deepened. “Not hiring.”
She had wondered about that. This didn’t seem to be a hustling place. “No? Why not?”
“Don’t need to pay no waitress. The customers come up to the bar for their drinks.”
She nodded. She needed a job, and this was her best shot. “I can tend bar.” She doubted anyone here would be ordering anything that took more than three ingredients.
“Little girl, our customers would eat you alive,” he said, not moving. “Plus, this is my bar. I’m the bartender.”
She hated the desperation that rolled through her. “But surely you could use a day off, and I could take over.” She stepped forward as she spoke. “I don’t mind hard work, and I’m stronger than I look.” Tougher, too, but she didn’t say so.
“This ain’t no place for a woman,” the man said, shaking his head.
“Ah, Louis, give her a shot.” One of the men who had been playing pool spoke up from the other side of the pool table. “She’s a lot nicer to look at than you are.”
Her heart gave a hard thud against her chest when Samson Guillory stepped out from the shadows, his shoulders stretching out a thin t-shirt advertising a tool brand, his dark hair waving to brush at its collar.
“You!” She couldn’t help the word that burst from her lips.
He leaned on the pool cue and gave her a slow grin. “Me.”
The boy she’d spent her teen years pining for had turned into a—what would her grandmother have called him? A hunk?
But he was the last person she thought she’d see in Phantom Bayou. The boy who hadn’t been able to get out of this place fast enough, ready to get away from the close watch of his pastor father. What was he doing back in town? And more, what was he doing playing pool in the middle of the day?
But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of asking him, wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing she thought twice about him. Her initial outburst was bad enough, but she could attribute that to her surprise at seeing him.
Face hot, she turned back to Louis, who was watching the two of them, arms folded over his massive chest.
“I don’t like closing,” the man said finally. “Come in at ten. I’ll show you what to do, and you can work ten to close every night. That okay with you?”
“I get an hourly wage and tips?”
He chortled. “Tips? Girl, the only tips you’re like to get is a swat on your ass, maybe a pinch if you’re lucky. Nobody tips around here.”
The knot in her stomach tightened. She needed money, and fast. She stepped closer and lowered her voice, not wanting Samson to hear, and wondering why she cared. “Then can you pay my hourly wage in cash?”
Louis studied her, eyes narrowed above that bushy beard. “You in some kind of trouble, little girl?”
“I just need some money to live on,” she countered, not wanting to give him her life story in exchange for a job.
She knew once she was gone, Samson would expose her as Etienne’s granddaughter, but for now, she didn’t offer that information and invite the questions it begged. “You want me to start tonight?”
“Them hours too tough for you?”
She shook her head. She’d worked longer and later hours in restaurants, though admittedly not in the middle of a swamp. She would definitely be driving to and from work.
“I’ll be here tonight.” She stepped forward to shake his hand, making note of the calluses on his palm, the flame snaking up his arms from the muscle car tattoo on his wrist.
She thought about asking if she could refill her water bottle, but she could make it home and drink water from her own fridge, if it was still working.
Her first instinct was not to acknowledge Samson before she left, but she felt him watching her. Her pride warred with her curiosity, and damn it, the curiosity won.
She glanced toward Samson and his friend, who was bent over the pool table, and gave him a nod before she stepped out into the sunlight, which burned his image from her brain, at least for the moment.
The hike home was miserable. The sun was overhead, not blocked by any of the tall trees that lined the road on one side and the bayou on the other.
She wondered how many bodies had ended up in the bayou from the biker bar. She didn’t want to know.
As she trudged down toward Main Street, she wondered at the wisdom of going to work in a place like that, when she didn’t even know who law enforcement was around here. Did they have a sheriff? A constable?
She’d cursed Dylan to hell so many times, it no longer felt like it had meaning, but she did it again anyway, since it was his fault she was in this mess.
No, time to stop blaming him.She had jumped in with both feet, because she believed in him, in his vision. Idiot. She would never make that mistake again.
Because the door to Allison’s shop was open, she wandered over.
The cool air conditioning was welcome after her trek, and she caught a glimpse of herself in one of the ornate mirrors on the wall.
Her face was tomato-red, her hair a frazzled mess.
She started to lift a hand to it, but decided to let it go.
Better for the customers at the bar—whose name she didn’t even know—to think she was a swamp witch.
Speaking of swamp witch, what was some of this stuff? The crystals and sage bundles she knew, dream catchers and incense, but those bundles of twigs were weird, and those jars looked like they held tiny bones. And were those locks of hair?
Allison stepped out from the curtained-off stairs, and gave Erielle a jolt, which was weird because of course she expected Allison to be here. But the other woman moved so quietly, her sudden appearance gave Erielle a start.
“Hey, Allison. I just thought I’d come in and look around.”
The other woman’s brow lowered, her lips turned down. Was she suspicious of Erielle? Or did she act this way with all her customers?
All her customers—how many could she have? How many people in this tiny town bought crystals or…bones?
“You look terrible,”Allison said finally.
“Forgot this humidity,” Erielle said with a wave toward the street. “I thought the town would be more walkable, but turns out I’m a wimp. I must not have noticed it as much when I was here as a kid, or else I didn’t care.”
Allison’s expression relaxed as Erielle rambled. “Does your house have air conditioning?”
“That remains to be seen,” Erielle said with a sigh.
So much did. She had never been bothered by uncertainty before, which was why she had been willing to take risks, with the show, with Dylan, with the restaurant.
Yeah, now uncertainty was no fun—no idea what her income would be, no idea if her appliances worked, if her roof leaked, if she would get murdered at her new job, if, if, if.
“Do you have something I can use to bless the appliances or something?”
Allison gave Erielle a look that said she didn’t appreciate the sarcasm. So, was this her salesmanship? Needed work. Erielle tried again.
“How did you get into all this?” she asked, because surely one had to believe in witchy things in order to sell them, right?
“I was raised in a religious household, so all this was forbidden.” She spread her hands to encompass the shop. “Which only made me curious about it. And when it felt like God turned his back on me, I turned to it.”
Okay, that sales pitch needed a lot of work. Erielle wanted to know more, but the way the woman was watching her with dark eyes, she just really wanted to get out of here.
She scanned the store for something cheap she could buy so she could make her escape, landed on a calming stone with an indentation for her thumb, paid cash and beat it out of there.
Hey, maybe the sales pitch worked after all.
Erielle walked in the front door of her grandparents’ house and shuddered. She didn’t know why, just a reaction.
And then she heard something tapping in the back of the house. Great. Just what she needed. Rodents..
Then another noise, louder, followed by a swear.