know … I just …. I had a weird feeling. Like I knew this girl from somewhere. It was strange. She had a familiarity about her.”
“Did you happen to catch her name?”
“Carly. Carly James.”
Once again, I find myself staring down at the knife, wondering if that’s her real name, seeing as she didn’t care to offer up identification at the door. “You know where she stays?”
“Um. No. She didn’t say. Is she … in trouble, or something?”
“No. She left something behind, is all.”
“Oh. Well, I mean, she seemed like a decent person, helping my sister out, but kinda secretive. Like, she didn’t want to tell me where she was staying.”
Exactly what I suspected, as well.
She tips back a heavy swill of the whiskey. “Are you firing me?” She doesn’t look at me when she asks.
“How badly do you need this job, Brie?”
“Very.” The answer arrives as more of a whisper while she stares down at her drink.
“Then, I’ll expect, the next time you decide to play taxi to your lying sister, you’ll be pursuing a change of career.”
“Yessir.” Finished with her drink, she slides the empty glass back onto my desk. “Will that be all, Mr. Bergeron?”
“Yes.” Amber fluid glides up the sides of the glass as I swirl my drink. “And, Brie …”
Before she reaches the door, she turns to look back at me. “Yes?”
“If you find out anything about the girl, let me know. And keep this between us, understand?”
“Yes, of course, Mr. Bergeron.”
With a nod, I dismiss her.
Whoever Carly James is, if that’s even her real name, she’s just found herself firmly in my sights.
I steer the small skiff alongside the jetty and cut the engine. After quickly docking the boat, I gather up my bag and climb out onto the jetty to the other side, where I’ve moored a fifty-six-foot houseboat. With two levels, it’s not exactly a junker out here in the thick of the bayou, but it being surrounded by large cypress trees and only a small stretch of land means I don’t have neighbors nearby who’d take much notice, and the ones who do live out here are older and keep to themselves. On top of that, a boat is the only means of getting to my home, as there are no roads out here, and one would have to have a pretty good lay of the bayou to find it.
According to local folklore, the fifolet--a mysterious light meant to misdirect, or disorient those who try to follow it--accounts for a number of unexplained vanishings out here, which has given rise to the bayou’s name—La Disparu. The vanished. It’s based on a tale that goes back to the roots of this bayou, from the turn of the century, when a voodoo queen accused in the murder of a child was banished to the swamplands and left to die. They say she’s lonely out here, and casts a light to lure unwitting folks astray, only for them never to be seen again.
A story so widely believed, it tends to keep most away, even locals, which makes it the perfect place for a man like me to call home. This whole island is brimming with ghost stories, hundreds of them spanning hundreds of years, and the people here are just superstitious enough to belief them.
No one from the main island knows where to find this place, not even my own cousin, Luc, and it’s better that way. For anyone paying close attention to my comings and goings, I rent a sparsely furnished flat off the main strip, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve actually slept there, since it’s only used as a cover. The flat’s building butts up to a canal, and it’s there where I dock my small skiff that I use to travel to and from the boat house. My truck remains parked at the building, giving the impression I’m there, even when I’m not. If shit goes down, and the cartel comes after me, I have something of an escape plan, though it’s not exactly guaranteed.
It’s more than my mother had, though.
The bayou is active, but peaceful, with its cacophony of chirping, croaking, and grunting sounds over the distant hoot of an owl from the woods behind the boat. Leaves of surrounding cypress trees rattle with a light passing breeze, and only the lone light on the foredeck of my houseboat offers any illumination by which to see the shadows of where they’re perched like age-old