Big Easy Murder (The Peyton Clark Series Book 3) Read online

Maybe!? Maybe nothing! Drake sounded irritated. This is your calling, mon chaton! You feel it, I know that you do. You like to help people and this is the best way you can help them!

  What?! By telling husbands that they killed their own wives? I spat the words back at him even though I knew it wasn’t fair of me.

  Non, he insisted. You help people by solving the mysteries that they, themselves, cannot solve, he responded in a level tone. You were blessed with a gift, ma minette, a gift that you should share. Use it wisely to help those who need it.

  I sighed, long and hard. I couldn’t deny the truth in his words. I’m just not ready to hear this yet, Drake, I said after a few seconds. I understand what you’re saying, but I just can’t handle it at the moment. Too much has happened and it’s still too fresh. The pain I feel is too much for me to deal with.

  Very well, I understand, he said. I suddenly felt like I could breathe a little more easily.

  “Another one bites the dust, eh?”

  I wheeled around at the sound of a woman’s voice. When I saw the young woman who stood smiling at me, I gasped.

  “Guarda?” I said aloud without meaning to do so.

  It is the voodoo witch! Drake chirped from inside me, his tone of voice on high alert.

  The woman laughed and shook her head, but didn’t say anything. Of course, I realized there was no plausible way this young woman, barely in her thirties, could really be Guarda. But she looked exactly like the Guarda I’d seen in my visions … I almost felt like I was hallucinating.

  “This day be a long time comin’ for him,” she said, motioning to the tomb in front of us. I noticed she wasn’t carrying an umbrella and the rain was doing a fine job of soaking her entirely.

  “Did you know Peter MacGregor?” I asked suspiciously. Taking in her tight, black tank top and the dark blue jeans that clung to her shapely lower body, I found her choice of clothing strange for a rainy day. What was even more strange was that she wasn’t wearing shoes …

  “Ah know everyone in this town,” she answered without removing her gaze from the tomb. She looked at it longingly almost, staring with a mix of wistfulness and what appeared to be melancholy.

  “Who are you?” I asked bluntly before shaking my head as I revised my question. “Er, what’s your name?”

  “Ah’m everyone an’ Ah’m no one,” she answered with a strange laugh. Shaking her head, she pulled her attention away from the tomb. She glanced over and almost studied me for a few seconds, but nothing in her face revealed whether or not she liked what she saw. It almost seemed like she could see right through me.

  Just like that, she started walking past me.

  I wanted to say something to her, and demand she identify herself, or tell me why she looked so much like the Guarda of the past. I also wanted to ask why she seemed to know Peter, but words escaped me. It was all I could do just to stand there and watch her retreating across the grass threshold that separated the walking path from the graveyard itself. She began weaving in and out of the tombstones and vaults, dragging her hands over each one almost languorously.

  “Wait!” I called out to her when I finally found my voice again.

  She stopped walking. Resting her hands on two tombstones that flanked either side of her, she turned around to face me.

  “You never told me what your name is, or how you knew Peter,” I started.

  “None o’ that matters,” she answered as she shook her head. With that same knowing smile, she added, “We will meet again.”

  Then she turned on her heels and continued to walk deeper into the graveyard. The sun set behind her, consuming everything in darkness.

  If you missed the first two books in the Peyton Clark series, Ghouls Rush In and Once Haunted, Twice Shy, be sure to check them out on Amazon!

  Stay tuned for the next book in the Peyton Clark series which will be coming soon!