Free Rose, Charlotte - Bayou Flood [The Shifters of Alligator Bend 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) by Charlotte Rose Page A

out toward a nearby dock. Virgil felt his jaw drop when he realized that the wooden planks never reached dry land. The coastline was literally disappearing overnight, the water encroaching as they slept.
    “Fuck,” he said, rubbing his eyes. He was dismayed to find that it wasn’t a trick of the light. No matter how he attempted to clear his vision, the land was disappearing. “What do we do?”
    “Adele was up workin’ late again last night,” Oscar said. “Says she and Narcisse have had a breakthrough. Hope it’s true and that it ain’t just the sleep deprivation talkin’. C’mon, they said they’d tell us over breakfast, and I’m starvin’.”
    They filed into the kitchen, and Virgil started salivating as the smell of biscuits and gravy hit his nose. He loaded up a plate for Sophie and then made one for himself. They all gathered around the table where Adele and Narcisse sat, looking both exhausted and satisfied.
    “Rumor has it the two of you figured somethin’ out,” Gabriel said.
    Narcisse nodded. “It’s definitely a combination of things that aggravated an ongoing environmental problem. We’re certain Pomet’s overfishing had something to do with it, based on the way it disrupted the entire ecosystem. Hell, we’re still trying to get business back to where it was after the loss of so many fish. But we found something else, too.”
    “Well, Narcisse was the one that noticed it,” Adele said. “We each took a boat out yesterday to do some data collection, with the intention of comparing and contrasting in an attempt to piece the puzzle together.”
    Narcisse was practically bursting with pride at the desire to share her findings. She pulled up some photos she’d taken. “I saw some people dredging up a bunch of mud and water around the city. They were doing some sort of construction project, too. Of course, I wasn’t surprised to see the Villemont Construction Industries sign on it.”
    “Construction?” Sophie asked. “I thought that Villemont ran a research lab.”
    Virgil laughed. “He has a business in just about every possible field, honey. If he thinks he can make money off of it, he’s gonna try to use it.”
    “I radioed Adele to have a look, we shot some more pictures, and then she went to take measurements around the rest of the coastline while I came back here and did some digging. You are not going to believe what Villemont is planning.”
    “He’s tryin’ to drown the entire city so he can turn it into his personal water park?” Virgil couldn’t help but roll his eyes.
    “No, nothing that insidious. It’s ridiculous, though. He’s developing an overpriced housing development made of stilt houses, you know, the kind where—”
    “What?” Virgil spat out. He could feel his blood boiling. “He’s gonna build million-dollar palafitte’s ?”
    “Looks like it. He’s dredging up part of the coastline to build there.”
    “Who the hell is gonna pay for those?” Gabriel asked.
    “Someone with a million dollars, who ain’t got no common sense,” Xavier said, rolling his eyes. “Hush now, let ’em tell you the rest.”
    “While Narcisse was doing that research, I was collecting data about the rest of the coastline. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the sediment is distributing itself anywhere else. Narcisse’s photos indicated that they were putting the sediment they dredged up on boats. Meaning it wasn’t settling and accumulating elsewhere.”
    “So where they puttin’ the stuff they put on boats?” Virgil asked.
    Adele shrugged. “I have no idea, but they don’t appear to be putting it back into the ecosystem. If they were, it would be building up in another location, and if we could stop the construction, we could work on bringing that stuff back and building the land back up. But I have no idea where they’re putting the sediment.”
    “Shit. So what do we do?”
    “Well, first I’m going to put together a report to show the damage that