Bérénice Jacquette, Part 1 of 2 by S. Ann Austin

Release date: January 19, 2020

Subgenre: Paranormal thriller, Psychological thriller

About Bérénice Jacquette:

 

The Past:
She was taken from a rundown farmhouse and brought to an isolated cabin. The sounds of a little girl crying echoes across the bayou. No one can hear her. No one will rescue her.

The Present:
Twenty-seven-year-old Bérénice Jacquette survived a horrific childhood in the swamplands of Louisiana only to wind up trapped in a bitter, loveless marriage. In spite of a traumatic past still haunting her, she is determined to find her independence. Harboring ambitions to be a successful author, she attempts to pen a work of fiction.

The chef of a popular restaurant in New Orleans, she believes no one suspects her of committing murder through the use of black magic while writing a realistic crime novel.

When a handsome and charismatic homicide detective named Gary Northcutt steps into her life she doesn’t wonder if he knows her secrets. She thinks only about how he can be useful to her.

 

 Excerpt:

 

Light rain bounced off his cap, trickled down a bare back and bib overalls. Virgil crept past the half closed door. Standing beneath the loft, he listened to the sounds of raw lust. Glossy photos in his dog-eared girlie magazines crossed his mind. He hiked the leather rifle strap onto his shoulder, gripped the sides of the ladder. Climbed slowly, the wooden rungs scraping mud off the soles of his scuffed work boots.

He could see them in a clearing bordered by short stacks of hay. Virgil recognized him. He was the same slick salesman who’d come sniffing around last April trying to sell them some kitcheny crap. He didn’t know if his wife got any. He’d left the house to spend the rest of the mild and sunny morning planting eggplants to be sold at the farmers market and to local chefs.

A July heatwave made the guy come a-knockin’ again. Now he was a-rockin’, in the hayloft, with a young wife and mama. “Bring it home, baby,” he told her.

A metallic click.

Marie froze.

Her dark eyes and flushed golden skin oddly reflected the lantern light. She tried to speak but couldn’t. It was too late to warn her loverboy anyway. He shot the salesman named Russell Something-or-other when he raised his head and turned to see what was going on. She screamed bloody murder. Virgil yanked her up off the floor, caught a whiff of the man’s scent, resisted giving her the beating she damn well deserved.

Trembling with fear, she used handfuls of hay to wipe the blood off of her. She looked out the loft doors, her gaze shifting from one upstairs window to the next. Her four-year-old son leaned his arms on the sill, stuck his thumb in his mouth. Marie hung her head and cried.

Virgil loaded Russell’s body into the bed of his truck. Sped across the field, toppling crops in his path. He put the body in a rowboat. Filled a burlap sack with the man’s belongings, added a concrete block. Tied the bag around Russell’s scrawny neck. Virgil heard a slight gasp, tightened the rope. Using a pair of wire cutters he removed the guy’s gold wedding band with his finger attached, and slung the bloody digit to the ground for the snapping turtles to fight over.

He rowed to the middle of the bottomless pond where scum floated on the surface and mosquitoes multiplied by the hundreds, and chucked the salesman in. Vivid lightning bolts spread their energy across the sky, their crinkled branches thinning at the tips. A high-pitched crackle of thunder followed by a loud crackle then a fading rumble. The rain grew in strength and intensity. Straight-line winds stole his cap, and damn near flipped his boat. Virgil quickly returned to the water’s edge.

 

Amazon

 

About S. Ann Austin: 

S. Ann lives in the Ozarks where she writes stories with a crime at its core.