Andre Gascon explains the paradox of his home, Belle Vista:
I dwell in an isolated house that is both my refuge and my prison, a mansion that should long ago have sunk into the Louisiana swampland. But because it’s the only place I can live, I must continue to breathe life into it. My abode is a strange blend of the old and the new. My computer sits on the antique rolltop desk in my office. The modern device is my lifeline to civilization, a tool that opens the knowledge and the skills of the modern world to me. It’s also the source of my livelihood because I use it to manage my investments.
Belle Vista occupies a plot of Louisiana bayou land that has been in my family for almost 200 years. My grandfather was the master of the house when a voodoo priestess named him a murderer and threw a curse onto him and all the first-born sons of his line. I am the current recipient, doomed to roam the bayou at night. If I try to escape from this patch of land, I will die. There is only one way to break the curse, through the love of a woman who will accept me for what I am, like in the old fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast. Only for me, it is reality.
I searched the web for such a woman, and perhaps I have found her. She is an investigator from a detective agency whom I’ve hired to help me discover who is killing people in the swamp near my refuge and making the townspeople believe it’s me. She will pretend that she’s a librarian who has come here to help me catalogue the books in my extensive library. Some are very old and valuable, collected by my grandfather and my father. Others are modern volumes that have formed the core of my education. They line the shelves of a cozy room with comfortable leather chairs on either side of the stone fireplace and double doors looking out onto an elegant brick patio.
The room is the heart of this house, which I’ve restored to its former glory. All the woodwork and floors are milled from rich, polished local cypress. The rooms are furnished with beautifully refinished antiques, except for the gleaming modern bathrooms and kitchen. And I’ve brought to life lush gardens around my prison. You come out of the bayou into a wonderland of bright flowers and greenery. Trumpet vines. Water iris. Night-booming jasmine. Behind a wall of rose bushes is my secret garden plot where I cultivate the swamp herb I must make into a tea and drink. If I miss a day, I start to grow sick and weak. Once when a hurricane tore up the plot, I searched through the swamp in a panic, looking for replacement plants. Thank the lord I found them.
My detective, Morgan Kirkland, is on her way to my lair. I believe I charmed her in our e-mail correspondence. But what will she think when she meets the living man? And how will she react to the voodoo priestess who comes to my garden at night to beat her drum and chant her hateful curses? I was afraid to tell my visitor about that. Or to confess that sunset drives me into the bayou every night. Can we live in this old house together, or will she run screaming from the man everyone in town thinks is no better than the wild creatures of the bayou?
Decorah Security 2.0 #14
The moment Andre Gascon read Morgan Kirkland’s bio on the Decorah Security Web site, he knew she was the right person to investigate the eerie murders plaguing his estate deep in the Louisiana bayou. His e-mails drew her to him. But when she arrived at Belle Vista, she learned he was a man with dark secrets. He lived like a captive on his own land, disappeared into the swamp at twilight, drank a strange homemade tea, and refused to trust her. And why did a voodoo priestess show up every night with her drum? Morgan knew destiny had drawn her and Andre together. But could she break through the barriers he erected around his heart–before evil forces doomed them both?
Paranormal | Fantasy [Oliver-Heber Books, On Sale: September 9, 2025, e-Book, / ]
Award-winning, best-selling novelist, Ruth Glick is the author of over 100 books. As Rebecca York, she has authored or co-authored romantic suspense novels for Harlequin Intrigue's popular 43 Light Street series as well as new paranormal romances for Berkley.
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