âWhere is your room located?â
She felt a blush creep up her face. âOn the second floor, north side.â
âThen Iâll take a north side room.â
Her mouth dropped just a bit and she held there, unable to close it or speak. Finally, she said, âYou donât think Iâm in danger, do you?â
âUntil I can figure out who or what is doing this and their motive, I donât want to discount any possibilities. If a man is vandalizing your property, then itâs personal, and thatâs something I want to explore with you tomorrow. He may escalate. Hiring me may cause him to escalate more quickly.â
A flood of scenarios that sheâd never considered washed through her mind. Locked up in her home with the sexiest man sheâd seen in forever or alone with a potential madman or mythical creature on the loose.
She wasnât sure which was more frightening.
Josette Bettencourt stared at the group of workers gathered in front of her ancestral plantation home and for the first time in a long while, couldnât think of a single thing to say.
The crew leader, Ray, a Creole man who was probably in his fifties, stepped forward. âWe need the work, Ms. Bettencourt, and the normal dangers of the swamp are things weâre comfortable with, but not this.â
She took a deep breath and blew it out. âI want you to explain to me again exactly what you saw.â
Ray nodded. âWe were repairing the fence on the north side of the property when we heard howling, but it werenât no swamp animal that we know. Then we heard something moving in the brushâsomething big.â
âDid you see it?â
âIt came through the brush about thirty yards from where we were working. Looked straight at us, then ducked back in the bushes and disappeared.â
âWhat did it look like?â
âIt was taller than me by at least a foot or two and had long gray hair. It had a face like a monkey and yellow eyes.â
Okay, it didnât sound any better the second time.
âYouâre sure it wasnât a bear?â
Ray drew himself up straight. âI know bear, maâam. I feed my family off of this swamp most of the time.â He pointed to the crew. âAll of them know bear, too. We all saw the same thing.â
The men nodded and shuffled around, clearly uneasy.
âI donât know what to say,â she said finally. âI will look into it with Emmett, but Iâm begging you not to leave.â
Ray looked at the men most of whom stared at the ground. âI canât speak for another man,â he said, âbut I will keep working for now. How many will stay?â
All of the men slowly raised their hands.
Josie felt almost dizzy with relief. âThank you. Move your crew to the west side tomorrow and work there until I figure this out. Whereâs Emmett?â
Ray shrugged. âWe havenât seen him since he got us started this morning.â
She struggled to hold in her frustration. âIf you see anything out of the ordinary tomorrow, come straight to me.â
Ray nodded and started to walk away, then hesitated.
âIs there something else?â Josie asked.
âYou grew up in this swamp, maâam. You know the legends.â
âThe legends are stories made up by parents to keep their children from wandering into the swamp,â she replied, stubbornly refusing to buy into age-old scare tactics.
âPerhaps, but what I saw today wasnât my imagination and it scared meâa grown man. Stories that last so many years often have truth in them. You can choose not to believe, but please take precautions in the swamp.â
Josie softened a little, realizing the man was simply worried about her safety. âOf course. Thank you.â
Ray gave her a single nod and motioned the crew away.
She blew out a breath and strode toward the barn, wondering where her foreman had wandered off to this time. Lately, she spent more time looking for Emmett than she did working with him on the repairs needed at the plantation. Heâd always been distant and short on words, but since her fatherâs death six months before, heâd moved on to physically absent as well as verbally.
There was no sign of Emmett in the barn, and one look at the sky let her know that daylight was running out. She grabbed a flashlight and a shotgun from a gun rack near the barn door and headed out to the location in the swamp where the crew had been working on fencing.
The area the crew had worked in that day was in the denser part of the swamp surrounding the house. Fences already existed at the perimeter of cleared land, but given the many dangerous creatures living in the swamp surrounding the main estate, the bank was requiring her to maintain a second set of fencing deeper in the swamp in order to open the house as a bed-and-breakfast. The new fencing would also keep hikers from wandering into the more dangerous areas, and provide an extra line of defense for her horses, the only luxury sheâd held on to after her fatherâs death.