MANGROVES AND MONSTERS
A spin-off from my debut novel, Hoodoo Money, this second book has Charlie Cooper searching for the "dead" supermodel, Angeline St. Cyr, on the Caribbean island of Jacqueme Dominique.
Here's a brief excerpt:
CHAPTER ONE
Wounds heal in stages. Numb one day, ants crawling under your skin the next. Itchy in the sweltering heat; achy in the cold. Weird. Charlie Cooper scratched the three-inch scar in his shoulder where he took a knife’s blade during the botched kidnapping of a student nine years ago.
Despite a Herculean effort by police, the poor boy died anyway — a few months shy of his eighth birthday.
“Sorry, kid.” Cooper yanked off his New Orleans Zephyrs cap and tossed it in the bistro chair next to him. Sorry for what? Christ. That he survived three days in an abandoned well, and his student didn’t? That he carried this damn scar as a constant reminder he failed to save the boy?
That only a few years after the abduction, still blinded by revenge, he couldn’t see the jewel he’d found in Angeline St. Cyr? Almost five years had passed since the auto-pedestrian accident that reportedly killed the supermodel — reportedly being the operative word. Which brought him to the only reason he had journeyed to Jacqueme Dominique, an island the size of Vermont, located east of the Lesser Antilles.
Call him fanatical or foolish, delusional even, but he had never bought into the hype regarding Angeline’s sudden death and subsequent cremation that her boss had fed to the press.
If Cooper saw her again, he knew he would recognize Angeline no matter how horrendous her scars. Hell, they’d lingered in his bed the entire weekend before the accident, and he had memorized every delectable inch of her.
Charmed by Angeline’s quirks, Cooper had both cursed her annoying habits and admired her tenacity. He had loved the supermodel, and loathed her. Now he only wanted the truth, even if it left him twice devastated.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. Sea breezes popped the restaurant’s green- and white-striped awnings but offered little respite from the heat and humidity that accompanied incessant June showers.
Cooper mopped his face with a navy bandana, then tied the damp kerchief around his neck and slumped back in his chair at the sidewalk table that allowed a pigeon’s-eye view of the small souvenir shop he had left forty-five minutes ago. While awaiting the shop proprietor’s return, he refueled on the Cross-Eyed Pelican’s legendary conch chowder, cassava bread, and steamed vegetables with mango chutney. Rumor had it tourists flocked to Jacqueme Dominique to sample the Pelican’s peppery fare.
He took a long draw of water, squeezed his eyes shut, and chased it with a couple aspirin, chewing slowly until the tablets dissolved to grit. Garlic and ginger assailed his senses, and he opened his eyes to a smiling waitress.
She placed a second bowl of steamy chowder in front of him, her drawl as far a cry from this exquisite paradise as Cooper’s home in Louisiana. “You stayin’ long, sugar?”
He stared at the shop across the street. “Don’t know yet.”
The waitress refilled his water glass and moved to the next table where an attractive woman, raven hair braided to her waist, told a joke involving a naked spinster, red knee-high socks, and a ping-pong table with one short leg. Deeply tanned, she was dressed for the bush in an olive shirt with wide flap pockets, belted khaki shorts, and suede half boots with thick, cuffed socks. The fedora on the table in front of her could have been a prop from an Indiana Jones movie.
A burley construction hand laughed so hard at her joke he almost knocked her off his lap, while his co-workers slurred drink orders for a concoction called a Bloated Bag of Monkey Spunk. Barely noon, and the rained-out hardhats already felt no pain.
The raven-haired woman winked, and Cooper noticed what the men apparently hadn’t: she wasn’t drinking. He figured one — maybe all four — of the hardhats would get rolled for their recently-cashed paychecks before midnight.
And they say women are the weaker sex.
Cooper slugged more water and patted his shorts pocket, feeling for the aspirin bottle.
A bell jingled across the street as the shop’s door opened. The man crossing the threshold tipped the scales at two-eighty easy. Dressed in baggy cargo shorts and a shirt sporting yellow hibiscus blossoms, he backed the door open and a skinny woman in oversized sunglasses exited. She stopped long enough to add another bag to the four he already balanced, this one red to match his ruddy complexion.
The man waddled after the woman, hitching up bags every other step. The door fell closed.
No Angeline St. Cyr.
Cooper shoved his meal away with a shaky hand when the shop’s bell jangled again. The brunette clerk he’d spoken with earlier held the door so a tall, slender woman could enter. She wrestled an armload of packages wrapped in brown paper, a wooden cane hooked over her arm. A wide-brimmed straw hat obscured her face, but Cooper’s gut screamed “Angeline!” so loud he thought he’d called her name.
No one around him stirred.
The woman disappeared inside the store.
He stood and dug in his pockets, scattering bills and change amongst the plates and cutlery. A nickel dropped to the sidewalk; he let it spin. He raced into the street and collided with a teenager on a rusty blue bicycle.
“Watch it, mister!” the boy said as he jammed his foot down to keep his balance.
Cooper shouted over his shoulder, “Sorry.” He skirted rain-filled dips in the cobblestone avenue and stopped short of reaching for the door’s brass handle. His stomach churned. Never too late to turn and run. He considered the option — for about half a second. He’d come too far, followed too many dead-end leads to retreat because of nerves or the prospect of disappointment.
Cooper needed answers, and he’d be damned if he left this island without them. Hell, he’d been damned to sleepless nights and all-consuming misery for the last five years.
Yep, he needed answers — and answers he’d get.
His reflection in the glass made Cooper wish he’d showered and shaved, and at least ran a brush through his hair. Though he was visibly fit, his thick brown mop now kissed the top of his collar. “You look like a bum,” he said, tugging off the cap and finger-combing his hair.
He yanked open the door, and the blessed cool of air-conditioning washed over him. A pair of creaky ceiling fans with blades shaped like palm leaves rotated lazily. The shop smelled of ink and plastic, cocoa butter and suntan lotion. Behind the counter, the brunette assisted a customer selecting earrings.
The tall woman had disappeared.
A young couple entered, four laughing children in tow, and further distracted the clerk.
Cooper made his way undetected through a rainbow collage of t-shirts and postcard racks to a narrow door in the back marked PERSONNEL ONLY. He knocked on the door and eased it open. Inside, he spotted another door to the right. From behind it came the sound of water splashing; a feminine voice hummed a soft, familiar tune.
Funny, he didn’t recall ever hearing Angeline hum.
A battered wooden desk faced the office entrance; its left side butted the wall below a partially opened window. A light shower pebbled the glass pane, and the smell of fresh rain wafted in through a two-inch gap.
To the left stood an upright tan file cabinet. He tugged on the handle. Locked. Dumped on the terracotta tile floor beside the cabinet were the string-tied parcels, along with her silver-handled cane and wide-brimmed straw hat.
Cooper reached through the mini-blind and slid the window shut. Turning back to the desk, he thumbed through the rain-spattered mail, most of it addressed to A.C. Dubois.
The name cinched it.
His mind leaped back to New Orleans five years ago, to the old St. Louis Cemetery and a cursed nickel lifted from the grave of a hoodoo woman named Simone Dubois. Lord, the lousy-ass luck that had followed: a mugging, and then the horrific accident. How fitting Angeline should adopt Dubois’ name. Guess she figured the old gypsy owed her.
An envelope slipped from Cooper’s fingers and parachuted under the desk. He crouched to get it and, rising up, struck his head on an open drawer. His elbow slammed the wall when he fell against the chair behind the desk.
“Can I help you?”
He shook his head to silence exploding bottle-rockets, then stared at the woman standing over him. He wanted to laugh, cry, swear, shout; he couldn’t breathe. “It is you.” Cooper scrambled to his knees, latched onto the chair’s arms for leverage.
She placed her hands on the back of the chair as he heaved himself up. “You don’t belong here,” she said, but the desire in her pale green eyes spoke differently.
For someone who went to great lengths for anonymity, Angeline St. Cyr didn’t seem surprised to see him. He straightened and wiped his palms on his denim shorts. She looked different — but the same. Same slender nose, tip turned up ever so slightly, same almond-shaped eyes and same full, pouting lips; her sultry voice as much Texas as any long-horned steer.
In his fatigued brain, it made a kind of bizarre sense.
She wore her blonde hair cropped short, boyish. He swallowed hard. A discolored scar snaked from under her left eye, down her cheek to the delicate curve of her chin. His gaze moved to her gold starfish earring, and then back to the scar.
“There’s a magnifying glass on my desk if you need a better look,” she snapped as she closed her eyes, her spiked lashes like spiders against pale skin. “When you’re done, you can tell me how you found me, Cooper . . . and how soon you’ll leave.”