Bayou Heat

Suzanna Myatt Harvill

Description

A torrid tale of murder, lust, and greed steeped in the sultry, murky swamplands of Shadow Bayou, Louisiana.
As Hurricane Gladys bears down on Shadow Bayou, Fontaine Varney’s ex-husband, lusty porn star Travis Coltrane, is shot to death in a fishing boat near Maison Fontaine, the luxury hotel Fontaine owns.
Coltrane’s reputation for chasing anything that catches his eye, male or female, makes him ripe for killing. The list of people with motives for murdering the bayou stud is as long as a gator’s tail. Among the list of suspects is Travis’s widow, Fontaine’s mother, who spitefully married Travis before the ink dried on the papers nullifying his marriage to her daughter.
Football-hero-turned-private-eye, Ace Chapelle, is hired by Fontaine’s wealthy father to protect her. Ace is just too handsome, too cocky, and too blatantly sexy for Fontaine’s taste.
Fontaine cannot ignore her attraction to the roguish jock, but instinct warns he is a dangerous man. Meanwhile, she is equally drawn to the bayou’s handsome and charming new doctor, Dan Birdsong, a far more fitting mate for a Creole princess; however, the young physician clearly has a past he wants left undisturbed.
Sheriff Cheyne Delacroix’s investigation leads him from the bayou into the fleshpots of New Orleans, where, he finds a spicy gumbo of suspects, most of whom voice the opinion that Coltrane wasn’t worth killing…yet somebody violently murdered him.
Suspicions of blackmail, rumors of illicit affairs, and stories of past killings simmer in the sultry heat of Shadow Bayou’s dark, murky waters, when, without warning, an attempt is made on Fontaine’s life.
Tension and tempers rise, heightening the fears of the stranded inhabitants of Maison Fontaine, as the storm approaches and the identity of the killer remains unknown. At the peak of the storm’s fury, yet another murder is committed.
A terrified Fontaine realizes most of the people surrounding her harbor secrets, secret lives, and hidden agendas.

Sujets

• Thrillers
• Suspenso
• Nueva Orleans
• Pornographic actor
• New Orleans
• Mystery
• Murder
• Romance
• Suspense
• La Nouvelle-Orléans
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: iUniverse
• Date de parution: 07 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781663241504
• Langue: English

Extrait

BAYOU HEAT
A Shadow Bayou Mystery
SUZANNA MYATT HARVILL


BAYOU HEAT A SHADOW BAYOU MYSTERY
 
Copyright © 2022 Suzanna Myatt Harvill.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
 
 
 
iUniverse
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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6632-4151-1 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6632-4150-4 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022912748
 
 
 
iUniverse rev. date: 07/08/2022
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Epilogue
PROLOGUE
TRAVIS COLTRANE LAY back on the cushions he had tossed into the small fishing boat and fanned himself with his straw hat. The mid-summer heat and humidity lay on Bayou Ombre like a damp blanket. He stretched out in his tight jeans and unbuttoned his red and blue checked cotton shirt, letting the breeze cool his skin. A dragonfly hovered near the can of cold beer clutched in his expensively manicured paw.
The quiet was soothing, only the white noise of insects buzzing in the weeds, the occasional croak of an amorous or disgruntled frog perched on one of the lily pads floating atop the still water. The subtle, primitive odor of the swamp wafted on the scant breeze, the smell not unpleasant, fecund, like the odor given off by hot bodies after satisfying sex.
Travis wasn’t fishing. He’d guided the boat near the bank where spindly tree limbs dipped toward the greenish water, trailing Spanish moss, providing a nice shady nook. He’d cut the trawling motor and tied the boat off to a cypress stump, or knee, protruding out of the water like a misshapen phallus. This was the spot where he could commune with his Muse, Erato, to inspire the sexy poetry for which he was gaining some renown.
At a reading in a bar in New Orleans last week, he’d been approached by a journalist from the Times-Picayune newspaper.
Travis huffed a laugh. New Orleans had to be the only city in the world where the number one newspaper would publish erotic poetry. Of course, his stuff wasn’t raunchy, but it was stimulating, or so he’d been told.
His blue eyes crinkled at the corners when he grinned, thinking about the woman from the newspaper. Good looking, fortyish, no wedding band, not that it mattered. Dark blond hair streaked with platinum. Big breasts barely contained by a sheer white blouse. She’d kept leaning toward him, giving him an unobstructed view, allowing the aroma of her musky perfume to tantalize his nostrils. The odor held an undertone of hot, primitive female, a scent he found all too enticing. He twitched his nose, conjuring the memory. She had been hot for him, but he had decided to let her desire simmer for a day or two, let it ripen into full-blown lust. He’d call her this evening.
He smiled, running his fingers through the thick mat on his chest and belly. He felt himself growing hard, imagining what he and the woman would do.
Travis was a chick magnet, handsome, overwhelmingly masculine…and sensitive…a poet. Women liked poets. Thought they were romantic and all such shit as that.
Ladawn, his wife, claimed she’d been lured by his poetry, his artistic side. Laughter rumbled in his chest, and he swigged his beer. He had a hunch his appeal had more to do with his other assets, none of which were financial, nor particularly artistic.
Ladawn didn’t need a man’s money. She had enough. He belched and pulled a face. She wasn’t too eager to parcel the long green out to him, however, but she bought him pretty much what he wanted, like that black Ferrari parked in the garage and the orange Harley-Davidson CVO Road Glide, his toys. She didn’t expect the two of them to be joined at the hip, a rare quality in a woman. Ladawn let him come and go as he pleased, and she seldom asked questions. She had her girly interests, charity socials, a theater group, maybe even another man or two on the side, not that she needed one. He had the equipment to give her all she needed in masculine attention.
He stretched like a big tomcat, enjoying the warmth of the sun filtering through the tree branches, and nearly purred his pleasure aloud.
Ladawn paid the bills, and Travis doled out what Ladawn wanted from him as often as she wanted it, and she wanted it often. Life didn’t get any better for a local boy.
Travis batted away another curious insect, a hungry mosquito. A gator slithered into the water from the opposite bank, barely making a sound, probably spotted something that whetted its hunger.
Everything’s hungry for something, Travis mused. All God’s creatures have hungers, especially people.
Hungers.
He pondered hunger as a theme for a poem.
Food.
Sex.
Money.
Fame.
He could understand hungers. He had plenty of his own. He was a sex shark, always hungry, and he hadn’t met a woman yet who could fully satisfy him. Not one woman, maybe four or five, even a guy or two. It didn’t really matter to him. One hole was as good as another, which had worked to his advantage in his former profession.
Before returning home to New Orleans, he’d made a pretty nice living for himself in California making “art” movies, porno. His Big Willie was a real moneymaker. Over nine inches of hard, thick, quivering cock and the stamina to keep that bad boy working long after others had worn themselves out. He’d been told most men didn’t have a whanger like Willie, even in a profession known for heavy equipment. It was long and nearly as big around as a beer can. Women loved it.
Thinking about his former lifestyle increased the twitch in his jeans. He’d enjoyed making those flicks…all the different women…and a few men. Might want to get back into it, but this time as a producer. He’d already talked to a couple of people about collaborating on the money end of things, offered to make cameos. Wondered how Ladawn would feel about that. He’d stashed a nice nest egg, so he really didn’t need Ladawn’s money…not that she needed to know that.
Before coming back home, he’d shaved off the black mustache Tom Selleck would have envied and let his luxuriant body hair grow back. Never understood why porn performers had to shave or wax themselves. He’d always found women attracted to the thick fur on his chest and belly. He scratched himself.
Ladawn sure did like to run her fingers through his pelt while she bounced on Big Willie. Lord, how that woman liked it, and she liked it hot, hard, and often. He should have married her in the first place, instead of wasting almost six months of his life on her daughter, his ex-wife.
His chuckle carried over the green water. He was the only man he knew who was married to his ex-wife’s mama.
And they all lived together in the family mansion, now an upscale hotel, here on Bayou Ombre, Shadow Bayou, Louisiana. He bet the locals were doing a lot of speculating about what was going on behind those walls, a handsome young stud, his still beautiful, older wife, and her daughter, his drop dead gorgeous ex-wife, Fontaine. And now the baby sister, Brittney, who’d been gone for over two years, had put in an appearance. His smile widened. He’d tapped her little honey pot shortly after she’d returned to the family hearth and home.
“Oh, my, my. Oh, hell yes,” he sing-songed. “Lemme get into yo’ party dress.” The twitching in his jeans was becoming more insistent, and he cupped his hands around his crotch and adjusted his package. Like her mama, that Brittney couldn’t get enough of Big Willie. Enjoying two women in the same family, mother and daughter, was a fantasy for a number of men.
The gator floundered out of the water and returned to the creek bank, hissing in the direction of Travis’s voice.
Travis chuckled again. Maybe he should buy a little coke, get Mama and baby daughter snorting, and see if he could get them both in bed at the same time. He knew Brittney would go for a scene like that. Mama might. Now if he could just get Fontaine to join in.
Fontaine Marie-Louise Varney. His ex-wife.
His gut tightened, and he twisted his lips downward. That scene would never happen. His ex-wife was too cool and controlled for her own good. An iceberg in the