Crescent Moon - By Lori Handeland Page 0,9

my head. The place was dim, dusty, dirty, but there wasn't any blood. Why would there be?

If there'd ever been any furniture, it was gone now, either stolen or maybe used as kindling - although I couldn't imagine the weather ever being cold enough to warrant a bonfire.

There weren't any holes in the roof or the floor, only the windows. With some elbow grease and a few pounds of soap and water, the place could be habitable again. Hey, I'd seen worse.

A board creaked overhead, as if someone had accidentally stepped on a crack, then frozen at the sound.

"Hello?" Charlie called.

No one answered.

I jerked my head toward the stairs and together we climbed them, splitting up on the second floor. Charlie took the right side; I took the left. I didn't find anything but dirt until I reached the last room near the back of the house.

There wasn't anyone there - at least no one alive. Ha-ha. But there was a picture on the wall. A very old, very interesting picture. I was still looking at it five minutes later, trying not to hyperventilate, when Charlie found me.

"Who is that?" I asked.

"Ruelle."

"I thought you'd never met him."

Charlie cut me a quick glance. "Not Adam. That there's his granddaddy, several generations back." He tapped the corner of the photo where a tiny notation read: 1857. I'd been too flipped out to notice.

"Name's Henri." Charlie spoke the name with a French twist, dropping the h, putting the accent on the second syllable. "He's been dead nearly a hundred and fifty years."

Charlie's words reached me from a long way off. I couldn't stop staring at the photo.

The face was that of the man in my dream.
Chapter 5
"I guess New Orleans really is the most haunted city in America," I murmured.

"Ye think it was a ghost up here?" Charlie's voice wavered, and he inched toward the door.

"What?" I dragged my gaze from the picture. "Oh. Maybe."

What did I know? I'd dreamed the face of a man who'd been dead for a century and a half. I'd found a bad-luck voodoo flower in my bed. I was in Louisiana searching for a werewolf, for crying out loud. I shouldn't be let loose without a keeper.

Charlie tugged on my arm. "Let's get outta here."

His hands were ice-cold. Poor kid. I took pity on him and went.

As we hurried across the grass, I wondered aloud, "The photo was the only thing left in the house. Wouldn't someone have stolen it by now?"

Charlie leaped from the dock to the boat. "I dunno."

Neither did I.

He drove the boat as if we were being chased, then dumped me back where he'd found me.

"We still on for tonight?" I asked.

"Sure. Swamp I got no problem with."

Charlie left with a roar of the motor, sending a huge wave over both the dock and my sneakers.

I returned to the hotel, where I discovered my flower was gone. I'd have figured the maid disposed of the thing, except my room hadn't been cleaned yet

"No, ma'am," the girl insisted when I tracked her down. "I haven't gotten to your floor."

"Did anyone else?"

"No. That's my responsibility."

She could be lying, but why?

As I let myself back into my room, my cell phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID.

Frank.

I'd been meaning to call him but kept getting distracted.

"What did you find?" he demanded without the courtesy of a hello.

I wasn't sure what to say. I hadn't found anything except a voodoo flower and a picture of a ghost. Neither one had any bearing on what Frank had hired me to do. So instead of answering his question, I asked one of my own.

"Why did you write the name Adam Ruelle next to the guide's information?"

"I didn't tell you?" Frank sighed. "My mind is not what it used to be, I'm afraid. Ruelle land has been the favored territory for the loup-garou."

Considering Ruelle land was basically a swamp, except for the small area where the house had been built, I could see why.

"Could you rent the mansion?" I asked. "I'd like to use it as my base of operations."

"I bet I could," Frank said slowly. "Great idea. You're going to find the loup-garou; I'm sure of it"

"Thanks," I said dryly. "You understand, don't you, Frank, that the possibility of discovering a werewolf is pretty slim?"

Right up there with the possibility of there actually being one, but I wasn't going to tell him that He was paying my salary.

"I understand," Frank said. "But mere's something there. Something new and