Read Online Hoodoo Woman (Roxie Mathis Book 3) by Sonya Clark - Free Book Online

invited calling her momma.
    “Roxanne,” she said as if she couldn’t quite believe it. “This is a surprise.”
    “I’m in town for a day or two. Thought I’d stop by and say hello.”
    Curious gazes followed our exchange. I ignored them, focusing on Nadine. The man she’d been talking to excused himself, nodding a greeting to me as he left. I nodded back, throwing in a little smile. For the first time I wondered, seriously wondered, what people thought of me after all these years. Freak, witch, weirdo, Satan-worshipping heavy-metal listening slut, and those were just the insults I could remember right off the top of my head. Heavy metal had never been my thing, I didn’t believe in Satan, and respectable Deputy Ray Travis was the only man in Blythe ever able to entice my inner slut. Well, okay, a couple of guys in high school, but they hardly counted.
    She said, “You’ll have to come by the house and catch up. You still living in a trailer or are you back in a real house now?”
    Bitch. I sighed inwardly. She couldn’t help herself and I had long ago decided to try to be the better person. “Still working on a down payment to start rebuilding. The FEMA money’s in the bank but it’s not enough.” Just to remind all the eavesdroppers about the flood that took my home.
    Nadine blanched and I immediately realized my mistake. She thought I was here for money. I said, “I’ve got a job in town so I’ll be busy but I’ll be sure to make time to stop by.” That was as close as I could get to exclaiming, relax, I don’t want your money .
    The deep line between her eyes smoothed out. “What sort of work are you doing?”
    “Research assistant for a writer.”
    She raised a heavily penciled eyebrow. “Oh? What sort of research would a writer have you be doing?”
    I really, really, really wanted to say something along the lines of trying out sex toys , but I didn’t. “He’s got a blog about Southern ghost stories and supernatural legends. I’m helping him do some research so he can turn it into a book.”
    “A blog?” She looked mystified.
    I refused to explain. Let her look it up or just be clueless. Her perfume was choking my allergies and I wanted out of there. “Yeah, so I’m gonna get going. Need to check some stuff at the library.”
    She nodded, tapping the folder on the open palm of her free hand. She made no move to approach me for a motherly hug and I followed her lead. With an awkward goodbye I left.
    The library was two blocks away. I hustled through the blustery spring day, head down against the wind. Stepping into the library felt like greeting an old friend. As soon as I was able I’d started spending as much time as possible away from home, usually either Rozella’s house or the library. The building was in severe need of upgrading but there were better and more computers and a huge flat-screen television in the magazine reading corner turned to cable news. The TV felt incongruous but I ignored it and went to the circulation desk to ask about using my laptop, hoping for Wi-Fi.
    Praise the Baby Elvis, the library did indeed have free Wi-Fi. I picked an out of the way desk and plugged in, first checking my email. Nothing but junk there so I found the website for the Blythe Ledger and attempted to search for articles about the death of Britney Parker. There was nothing in the past week which was as far as I could go without purchasing a subscription. That made the Baby Elvis sad and I cursed old media for not giving me what I wanted for free. Laughing at myself, I resorted to a general web search.
    The generation after mine was comfortable showing their grief in public. I found social media mentions of Britney’s death and a website dedicated to her memory. The garish look of it brought back memories of the inside of high school lockers. Bless their plagiarist heart, the person who put up the site appeared to have copied Ledger articles word for word. Leaving in the byline was my