A Dangerous Dance (12 page)

He looked at his watch. He could only spare another hour before he had to get in prep for his show. Lots to talk about again today.

When the door closed, she turned with a rueful smile, still holding the scroll.

“Do you really not have a family line traced already?” Remy asked. “I'd have thought Magus would have himself traced back to some kings for sure.”

“If he did, I never found it,” Dorothy said. She tossed it on the table by the phone and tried Vonda's number again. He heard the phone start to ring and out of curiosity picked up the discarded scroll. He arched his brows in mute question, she nodded, so he untied the ribbon, and unrolled the heavy parchment.

They'd done a nice job of it, tracing not just Magus's line, but her mother's, spreading them artistically around on a tree with leaves for family members. He studied the names, following different lines.

“Any kings?” Dorothy asked.

“Just a couple of French Dukes.” Remy grinned at her before turning the sheet sideways to study her mother's line. “I didn't realize your mother had a sister. Where does she live?”

Dorothy's eyes widened. “I didn't know she had a sister.”

Before Remy could respond, he heard the ringing stop.

“Yes, hello,” Dorothy said. “Is Vonda there?” Her brows pulled together, putting a charming wrinkle between her brows.

You've got it bad, Mistral, when you start admiring wrinkles.
She hung up the phone, the expression on her face odd enough to drive out everything but curiosity. “What?”

“That was a police officer. Apparently Vonda's apartment was broken into last night.”

“And Vonda?” Remy asked.

“No one seems to know.” Dorothy turned from him, wrapping her arms around her middle. “I should have left it alone. I should have just left it alone.”

Remy approached her cautiously. Her back was unnaturally straight and brittle looking. He touched her, then turned her to face him.

“This isn't your fault. Crap happens. Trust me, crap would have happened with or without you. Who ever did this, well, secrets have a way of surfacing. One way or another. The only person to blame here, is the person who started it all. The killer.”

She nodded, but he could tell she didn't really believe him. He didn't blame her. When secrets surfaced, it was because someone dropped a rock in the pool where they were hiding. Together, they'd dropped a big one. Truth was, he felt responsible, too. He opened his mouth to tell her that, when her head drooped forward onto his shoulder.

“I'm sorry. I didn't know it would be like this. I guess I thought it would be like TV, where we just followed the clues and justice was done. Stupid, huh?”

Without thinking, he pulled her close. “Not stupid at all. We'll get through this. We'll find out who did it and stop him.”

“Him?” She looked up at him, giving him unobstructed view of her amazing, violet eyes and the sweet, heady curve of her mouth.

“Or her,” he said, huskily.

He saw her eyes darken as they registered his change in focus. Thinking slowed to a crawl as his blood supply moved south for other duty. It wasn't smart, but it had been awhile since he'd felt the clean, swift bite of desire. Had he really been proposing a marriage of convenience to her or had he, on some level known she might be the right fit for him?

That was the last clear thought he had as she moistened her parted lips with her tongue. The glistening oval beckoned, promising both respite from worry and a plunge into sensation. He bent his head. Their lips touched. He pulled back, brushing his mouth against hers. He prepared to go in for the long haul, when they both heard the fumble of someone at the door.

By the time the door opened, they were several feet apart. Dorothy had her back to Titus, who stopped in the doorway. That's twice. Third time, he'd smash his face in.

Titus's eyes narrowed on Remy, then they flashed to Dorothy. “Everything all right?”

Dorothy pretended to be busy with papers on her desk. “Of course.” She glanced up, one brow arched. “Why wouldn't it be?”

Titus nodded, gave them both another look, then went into the other room, closing the door with just a hint of a snap. Remy grinned at her, and then looked at his watch. “I've got to go to work.”

He gave her a look of a apology.

She accepted with a smile. He had his hand on the knob when she said, “Remy?”

He looked back at her.

“How do we stop him?”

“By getting in his way.”

Her smile was slow, but breathtaking. He wanted to cross the room and bury himself in that smile. He hung on to the knob like it was a life line. Probably because it was.

“Let's up the stakes then,” she said a grim note in her voice, despite the smile.

“What do you mean?”

“Let's have a party.”

She made it sound like a rumble. “Okay,” he said. “Where?”

“Oz. I think we should open Oz.”

She was terribly calm, but Remy had the feeling it was the proverbial calm before the storm.

* * * *

Kate Needham opened the web page for the New Orleans newspaper,
The Times-Picayune
and started browsing for stories about the governor's race. She didn't have to look far. The murder of Clinton Barnes wasn't the lead, but it was lower-fold, front page. By this time she was familiar with all the players, but even if she weren't, the lead paragraphs had enough info to place Barnes in his proper context as Verrol Vance's attorney.

So, Vance was dead and now so was his attorney. And Dorothy had been with Barnes when he was shot. It was a throw-away line. Clearly the police were trying to down play Dorothy's role in the incident. What had she been doing with Barnes, except trying to get information? She'd made it clear during the interview, Kate had listened to via the internet yesterday, that she was determined to find who had hired Vance to kill her father.

She just had to mention the money. Kate shook her head. Foolish girl, waving all that money in people's faces. So far all it had accomplished was to get two people killed. Granted, they weren't the two most honorable people on the planet, but Kate was sure Dorothy felt the weight of their deaths, nonetheless. Her face showed her to be a person of character and resolve, despite her resemblance to her mother.

Did she ever wonder about the past or about her DNA donors? She'd tried to make some kind of connection with Magus ten years ago. That had ended in disaster and almost killed her. Now she was getting herself involved with Remy Mistral. Why had she exchanged one driven, ambitious man for another? Like her mother, it seemed she was a slow learner.

Should she contact Dorothy, she wondered, just like she had every day since she found the article about her? She knew Henry was worried about her and it grieved her that it was so, but how could she ever explain to him what happened when she wasn't sure she knew herself. What was real? What wasn't? For the last ten years, she'd been Kate, just Kate, Henry's wife.

Sometimes this dark feeling had swept over her and she knew that something was lurking out there somewhere, something awful just waiting to pounce, but the shrink told her it was just the blues. People often had feelings of impending doom without it meaning doom were truly impending. He'd given her some antidepressants and sent her home. And while she took them, doom did move further away. But it hadn't left and it chose this week to pounce on her with stunning force.

Being hit by a train would have been easier than this. It was as if her life was this connect-the-dots puzzle and she hadn't even noticed that not all the dots were there. Now they were back, painfully back. She couldn't tell Henry. He'd hate her. So she'd gone to her shrink again. The one who told her it was normal. He'd given her a new version of “normal” this visit.

“Extreme stress, severe trauma can cause the repression of painful memories and sometimes memory loss.”

“For so long?”

“There was, apparently, nothing in your life to remind you until now. Or maybe your mind wasn't ready to deal with it.”

“I don't feel ready now!” she'd cried out. And she still didn't, but he'd assured her she was. Easy for him to say. He just had to sit and listen and collect his money. He didn't have to live it or feel it. More than anything, she wanted to turn back the clock, not have clicked on the link that took her to the web site with the story.

She felt the lie of it, even as she told it to herself. She might wish she hadn't done the things she'd done in the past, but the truth was, she couldn't regret being whole again. It was only now, in that fifty-fifty hindsight that she could see that she had been less for not having all of herself in her head the last ten years.

She heard the gentle whir of Henry's wheel chair behind her. Dear, dear Henry. Would he love the whole her as much as he'd loved the half her? It shamed her that she wasn't sure. Ten years of marriage should count for something, shouldn't it? Even counted against some forgotten truths? Would Henry have loved her with her missing parts? She didn't love him the less for his lost mobility. But that wasn't about his character.

Her head drooped, even as she quickly closed the window on the computer screen. The wheel chair came closer until he was in her peripheral vision. His hand, less vigorous then when he'd proposed to her, but strong enough, gripped hers.

“Won't you tell me what's wrong, Kate?” His voice was so gentle, her body shook with the pain of it. His anger would have been easier to take.

“If these ten years are real, if you've been shaped by them, Kate,” her shrink had said, “then you'll be able to tell Henry the truth.”

But what was truth? She hadn't just forgotten her past. She'd made up a new one and apparently believed it to be real. How was that possible? The shrink had a word for it. So did Kate. Crazy. If she was having trouble believing it and she'd lived it, how would Henry feel?

“There's nothing you can't tell me, Kate.” his grip tightened on hers. “Now that I'm...less mobile, if you've needed...more than I can give you...”

She whirled to face him. “No! Never that, Henry. Never that!”

“Then what?”

“It's so much worse than an affair.” She pulled her hand free of his, curled both into fists.

“I love you.”

“You won't for long.”

“Can you trust me so little?” He looked hurt. He would be hurt either way. He held out his hand to her. “Kate?”

She took a shaky breath, and then took his hand. Where to begin?

“I...have...had a sister.” Through his hand she felt surprise jolt through him. And this was only the beginning.

* * * *

Titus would have yet another conniption, but Dorothy didn't care. For this visit, she didn't need any shadow but her own. It had been easy enough to get Vonda Vance's address. Those useful contacts of Magus's. The concierge got her a cab and he knew the address. The drive over was bumpy, but that was because of the city's infamous potholes. Any other time, she'd have enjoyed the drive through the city streets. She'd forgotten how interesting New Orleans was, with its mix of old and new, fast and slow.

Vonda's apartment complex was not particularly attractive, but it wasn't a complete dive either. For some reason, this reassured her. At least her life hadn't been awful after her husband went to prison.

There was still a police car out front, but none of the other trappings of a crime scene. Dorothy paid the cab and went inside. Vonda's apartment was on the second floor. Gravity pulled against her as she climbed the stairs, releasing her reluctantly. At the end of the hallway, she saw an open door. Inside a cop and a woman stood talking among the chaos of the tossed apartment. They both turned to watch her approach with a curiosity that increased as it became clear where she was heading.

“I called earlier,” Dorothy said. “Did I speak with you?” She looked at the cop.

He nodded, looking a bit flustered. He was young, painfully young to Dorothy's eyes.

“You're Dorothy Merlinn?”

The woman with him jerked at the sound of Dorothy's name. “You're the Wizard's daughter?”

“I'm afraid so.” Dorothy gave her an apologetic look as she studied her.

She was medium everything, build, coloring, height, weight and dress. The only exception was a pair of glasses hanging from her neck on a lurid, beaded chain. It was the kind of interesting incongruity that Dorothy loved.

“I'm Leda Tasker. Vonda was a friend and coworker.” She tried to look suspiciously at Dorothy, but her curiosity kept getting in the way. “He said Vonda called you last night?”

“She left a message at my hotel, asking me to call her,” Dorothy confirmed. “Have you heard anything...?”

Leda shook her head, worry pushing out everything else on her face. “They found a suitcase with her things and her purse in the bushes below her window with everything tossed around it.”

“It seems she may have climbed down a fire ladder,” the cop added.

Dorothy looked at the mess. “I take it this isn't normal for her?”

“Hardly! Vonda was very neat!”

Books were strewn about. Her CD cases had been opened, the discs dumped, the covers pulled out, and then thrown into a pile. Drawers were opened, the contents tossed. Cushions had been ripped open. The desk looked like a category five hurricane had hit it. Even the refrigerator hung open, the contents clearly searched, then dumped on the floor.

“Do the other rooms look like this?” Dorothy asked, dully. If any letter had been here, it had been found. Someone had, so far, managed to stay one step ahead of her all the way.

“But nothing seems to be missing,” the cop said. “Money was still in her wallet, TV and stereo still here.”

Leda looked tense and her eyes were wide with worry. “Do you know what they were looking for?”

Dorothy hesitated, wondering how much to say. She hated those mysteries where no one told anyone anything. “I think she had something she wanted to give me. I had the impression it had something to do with my father's murder.”

“You think Verrol finally told her who hired him?” Veda asked. “You mean that idiot put her in danger like that? He's lucky he's already dead!”

“He may have thought she'd want to know. Or that it would be financially beneficial to her,” Dorothy said carefully. “I'd have certainly paid her for it.”