Sunrise in a Garden of Love & Evil (27 page)

At the bottom of the front stairs she dropped the second Midol. It showed up blue against the dead grass. At the driveway she dropped one earring, not daring to look down and see what color it was or whether it showed against the gravel, although Donnie seemed preoccupied with shepherding them to his place as fast as possible. Across the drive she dropped another on the dirt at the verge. "Wait," she said, "My flip-flop came off." She kicked it on again while noting with relief that this earring at least was yellow and definitely visible.

Another yucky thing: Donnie smelled bad. Fearfully, freakishly bad. Every instinct told Zelda to run, but she couldn't let silly, helpless Joanna go with Donnie all by herself, even if she'd done it before and had been lying all the time. Zelda hummed a tune and let another earring fall on Donnie's lawn, and another at the bottom of his back steps.

Inside the house, Donnie shut the door and locked it. "Upstairs, girls," he said.

"What are you making for my mom?" Zelda preceded Joanna up the stairs, Donnie right behind them, panting heavily.
Old guy, out of shape,
thought Zelda, or maybe,
Disgustamungo! He's turned on
.
But he has no idea who he's dealing with.

It turned out that he was neither. He was in plenty good shape to knock both of them on the head as they reached the landing. Zelda saw Joanna crumple to the floor, and after that everything went black.

Gideon's cheerfulness almost did Ophelia in. Not that he didn't have plenty to be pleased about. "We're building a good case against Donnie. He's got questionable financial records, and he offered cash for Wyler's place, closing this afternoon. Hopefully we'll find the trash and the carpet cushion, but there's sure to be trace evidence that links him to at least one of the murders. In the meantime, I want him behind bars before he kills someone else. The chief's not ready to cooperate. He says he can't go around arresting respectable business owners he's known forever--the kind who might get elected to city council--just on suspicion."

"Why should Donnie kill anyone else?" Ophelia asked, deciding Gideon wasn't really cheerful. He was being phony-nice, just like when he suspected her. Which he was doing again now. She glared at him indignantly. "Stop that!"

"Stop what?" Gideon's dark eyes were bland above the rim of his coffee cup.

Ophelia bit aggressively into the muffin slathered with peanut butter that Gideon had insisted she eat. "Stop looking at me like you suspect me. It makes me not trust you again."

"Until I figure you out, that's how I'll look at you," Gideon said. "It means I care."

With difficulty, Ophelia swallowed the chunk of muffin.

"Donnie will kill anyone he sees as a threat," Gideon said, back in "Good Day Sunshine" mode. "What are your plans for today?"

"Work," Ophelia said.

"At home? At a customer's?"

Ophelia swallowed again. "Both. Don't worry, I'm not planning on threatening Donnie. If you need me, my phone will be on." She washed the lump in her throat with coffee, but it didn't go down. She fought for some other topic. "Art left the club last night with Darby Sims."

Gideon broke into a genuine smile. "That's good news! They should have gotten together years ago. Did Constantine get rid of Marissa Parkerson?" Ophelia gaped, alarm bells clanging, but Gideon merely chuckled. "Art was kind enough to inform me she wasn't sleeping with him, so I knew something else was going on. He scared the shit out of the poor woman, I suppose."

"Something like that," Ophelia said. "It really bothered Art."

"Not you?"

It was impossible to figure out how he meant that. "It wasn't pretty, but I'm used to Constantine. It's never any use arguing with him once he's decided what to do."

Gideon was so cheerful he almost bubbled over. "If Marissa's husband was such a screwup, she's probably better off if he really is dead."

Too bad "dead" didn't solve it for her. "Uh-huh." Ophelia stood. "I have to go."

"Sure you do." Gideon blew her a huge, sparkly, sinister kiss. "Have a great day."

Ten minutes later, Ophelia pulled into her driveway. Donnie's truck, empty now that he'd disposed of all the evidence, and spanking clean to boot, sat next to his house. The front door of the Wyler Colonial slammed open, and Lisa scrambled out with a backpack in one hand and a bag lunch in the other, yelling "Joanna!"

Ophelia drove Constantine's big blue truck past her trailer and the greenhouse to park behind the chipper at the farthest compost pile. She hefted a shovel and a spade out of the back of the truck, and her spare shotgun from the cab, and set to work.

It was too much to hope she'd be left in peace. Lisa hollered for her daughter again, and shortly afterward Ophelia saw her banging on Donnie's door. She slogged grimly away at the compost pile and listened to Lisa's shrill whine. "She left without her books! And her purse! She never forgets them. Did you see her catch the bus?"

The rumble of Donnie's voice was too low for Ophelia, but clearly the answer was negative. Then Lisa shrieked, "She was
where
?"

Rat,
thought Ophelia, with a silent apology to self-respecting rodents. But of course he wouldn't stop until he'd uprooted her, too.

She threw the shovel beside the pitiful pile of dirt she'd managed to move, picked up her shotgun, and walked out past the chipper. "Joanna's not here, so you can damn well back off," she said when Lisa reached the greenhouse, but the woman's careworn face wrenched Ophelia's gut and she softened her tone. "Sorry, Lisa, but I haven't seen her this morning. I just got home myself."

Donnie sauntered up behind Lisa and clamped a hand on her sagging shoulders. "Told you," he said, sounding patronizing and patient. "I said Joanna was here
earlier
. I figured she went back home, but maybe it was already time for the bus. I don't watch out the window all the time, you know."

He chuckled. Ophelia gripped the shotgun by the barrels and approached them, glancing from Lisa's miserable face to Donnie's smug one, longing to put the bastard away for good.
Like that worked before.

"Now I have to drive all the way to the middle school," Lisa whimpered. "I can't afford the gas. I can't afford anything."

"I'd take it for you, but I don't have the time today. How about I advance you a couple of bucks?" Donnie pulled out his wallet and magnanimously handed Lisa two dollar bills.

Ophelia bent her head to fiddle with her advancing fangs. She had to remember not to be threatening.

"You'll have cash today after we close," Donnie told Lisa. "Shouldn't you be packing?"

Ophelia's fangs strained to emerge, and she willed them to be still.

"To go where?" Lisa quavered. "Some friend you are, stealing our house out from under us the moment we're down. Willy was so upset he never came home last night. He's a lousy husband, but usually he comes home."

"I'm doing you a favor," Donnie protested. "You can find someplace else to live."

Snake,
thought Ophelia, and apologized silently to snakes.
I will make you sorry.

"But I love my house." Lisa hauled in a deep, sobbing breath and flicked away tears.

"This is a lot of cash for me to lay out," Donnie said. "You should be grateful."

Maggot,
Ophelia thought. Then she remembered all the hard-working bugs and other creatures who deserved her respect, whose handiwork she would be especially grateful for today. She put on a sweet smile. "You're buying Lisa's place? You don't need to waste your hard-earned cash, Donnie. Remember what I said last night?" She turned to Lisa. "Hold off on the deal for a day or two. I'll talk to Vi about getting you a job. Even if your credit's shot, it's not hard to get a loan on a house you own free and clear." A tiny light of hope showed in Lisa's eyes. Ophelia smiled at Donnie again. "Right?"

Rage filled Donnie's face. Ophelia bit her lip to suppress a rush of pleasure, drawing blood. Which also felt damn good, even if the blood was only her own.

"They've already signed a contract," Donnie said.

Ophelia propped her gun against her chest and spread her hands. "What's a contract between friends? Tear it up. Lisa, when you get back from the school we'll make some calls."

Lisa hurried away, her shoulders straighter, but Donnie lingered, following Ophelia toward the compost pile. "Why did you have to tell her that? She's trash. Good riddance."

Ophelia set her gun down and picked up her shovel. She tossed a shovelful of compost. "You're the trash, Donnie, as Violet will tell you herself when she hears about this."

"I didn't do nothing wrong. They're broke, they needed to sell, and I made an offer."

She slung another shovelful and glared at him. "You took advantage of someone else's misfortune. You can forget about getting together with my sister. It won't happen."

Another satisfying flash of hatred answered her. Donnie planted his legs apart and rocked on his heels, watching her, giving her the creeps, but no way would she let that show. "Why are you moving dirt from one pile to another?"

"I'm turning compost for my new garden."
Ha!
"I'm so glad the old garden was destroyed. It's given me the impetus I needed to try something new and different and fabulous. I have
huge
plans." She threw a shovelful more or less in his direction. "Funny, isn't it, how a catastrophe can turn into something wonderful?"

Donnie snarled, "Or something wonderful into a catastrophe. You never know." He clomped away. Ten minutes later she heard his truck start up and burn rubber onto the road.

Ophelia returned to work, mildly uneasy about what Donnie might do, but before long she was so much more uneasy about what she herself was about to do that it hardly mattered.
I will not think about it,
she told herself.
I will just do it, and it will be done.

She shoveled and sweated and repeated this mantra as she dug deeper and deeper. She heard Lisa and Connie leave; she listened to birds and distant dogs, and wondered why Psyche hadn't come begging for food. Eventually, though, she had dug deep enough and she knew it. Nausea rose in her gullet, but she thrust it back down. The time had come.

She climbed out of the hole, got her water bottle from the truck, and took a long swallow, but it didn't wash away the sick disgust. She took a good look around. Lisa hadn't returned, nor had Donnie. No cop cars stood in Plato's drive, and only light traffic passed on the road. There wouldn't be a better time.

She set the water bottle down, sucked in a deep breath, and donned the gardening gloves she had left at the rim of the hole. She scraped earth from around the big bone she had just exposed. The human bone.

I'm sorry. But I didn't start it, and I never meant it to end this way. I may be a vampire, but that doesn't mean everything's my fault.

Tears sprang uselessly to her eyes. She wouldn't willingly do this to a mole. Finally, she wiped her tears and firmly closed the door on that and any other faltering thought.

"I have no fucking choice," she said out loud--and turned the key on the chipper.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-FOUR

Zelda woke in darkness to the sound of blubbering close beside her. She was propped in a sitting position between the sobbing someone and the corner of a tiny dark room, with only a thin line of gray light showing under the door. The room stank of old shoes.

She lifted her head and was greeted by a headache that jostled for attention with the throbbing in her gums, the ache in her shoulders, and the blood in her mouth. Zelda focused on the blood, which tasted incredibly good. She ran her tongue across her gums and scraped it on the tiny sharp tip of a fang. "One down," she muttered, and then, "Oh, crap." Her hands were tied behind her back.

"Zelda!" Joanna bleated right next to her ear. "Thank God you're awake. I'm so scared!"

Zelda's feet were tied together as well. "Crap," she said again. "You're tied up too, right? I don't
believe
this. Donnie knocked us out, tied us up, and dumped us in a closet full of stinky old shoes. This is like some terrible movie, and I'm the TSTL."

"The what?"

"Too stupid to live. There's always a girl like that in bad movies. I
knew
there was something weird going on. I
knew
I shouldn't go into Donnie's house with you, but he likes my mom and I've known him forever, and you looked so miserable, and..." Zelda yanked at her bonds. "And I'm an idiot, so I came with you and Donnie anyway."

"I'm sorry." Joanna started to cry. "It's my fault. You were just trying to be nice."

"Yeah, well, there's nice and there's stupid, and I turned out stupid." Zelda yanked again, and the muscles in her shoulders screamed.
Double idiot. Use your brain.
"Don't cry, Joanna. We're in this together and we'll get out of it together."

"It's so dark in here," Joanna said. "I'm sorry, but I'm really, really scared."

Zelda could see okay. She felt a rush of sympathy for Joanna, helpless and generally in the dark. "Donnie took those pictures, right? He was threatening you, so you made up the thing about taking them yourself. It's okay, I'm not mad at you for lying to me."

"I wasn't lying! I did take them myself. He caught me taking them."

"Eew," Zelda said. "That is so gross." She pulled her knees closer to her chest and pushed them forward again, sliding a fraction of an inch along the closet floor.

"Donnie is a nosy, disgusting pig." Joanna's voice quavered indignantly. "He doesn't just look out his own windows, you know. Sometimes he looks in ours, which is how he caught me. I hate him. He took the film and told me he'd send copies of my pictures to all the boys at school if I told on him. And as if that wasn't bad enough, he got them developed and made sure my parents saw them." Her voice rose in panic. "What's he going to do to us?"

"Nothing," Zelda said firmly. "We're going to get away." She shifted her body closer to Joanna and rolled her hip in the other direction. Her key chain dug into her butt. Yes! "Don't start crying again. I've got a plan."

Below them a door slammed. Joanna jolted out a gasp. "It's Donnie!"

No duh. "Shh!"

"Maybe he went out!" Joanna whispered. "Maybe--"

"Nope." Zelda could already hear him on the stairs. "He's coming up. Pretend you're still unconscious. Don't move, don't say a word."

Heavy footsteps approached the closet door. Another of those ghastly pangs shot through Zelda's gums, and she bit her tongue to stay still. Blood taste again. Nice. She hauled her senses away from the blood and toward the danger she and Joanna faced, wondering what she would do if he tried anything. Bite, she thought, bite hard, and if she got the chance, rip him open. She shuddered at the violent, vampish thoughts.

"Anyone awake in there?" Donnie asked.

Joanna stifled a sob.

"I'm real sorry, girls." Donnie sounded almost sad. "I didn't want to have to lock you up. I don't want to have to hurt you."

Bang! The wall of the closet shook, and a desperate wail tore out of Joanna. Her body vibrated against Zelda's. What the heck was going on?
I'll kill him for scaring Joanna like this.
For a second, Zelda contemplated the positive side of a vamp temper, but a series of bangs almost split her head open. She bit her lip hard to stop from shrieking. More blood.

"Awake now?" Bang! "Y'all weren't supposed to be in Ophelia's house," Donnie said. Bang!

Joanna crumpled against Zelda, valiantly muffling her sobs, and then Zelda figured it out. The old creep was nailing the door shut.

"It's not my fault," Donnie said. "I'm real sorry."

Rage coursed through Zelda, and her gums throbbed and quivered and heaved. She shut her eyes tight,
tight
, and the wave of torment passed.
Easy as pie?

But Violet hadn't been locked in a closet with someone hammering right next to her aching head at the same moment her fangs fought to slot down for the first time. At the thought of her mother, Zelda almost wept, too. But, no. Later. When they were out of here she could cry all she wanted. She licked the blood where she had bitten her lip and leaned comfortingly, she hoped, against Joanna.

"I have to run an errand, girls, but I can't have you getting out while I'm gone." Bang! "I'll be back real soon." The heavy footsteps clattered down the stairs. A few seconds later a door slammed below.

"Shh!" Zelda listened hard. "There goes his car. Now's our chance." She bumped forward, heedless now of noise. "Move over toward where I was, only with your feet in the corner and your back to me.
Quickly!
"

Joanna snuffled hard and did as she was told, but it took forever to squeeze around in that cramped space. Zelda backed up and squished sideways. "Get your fingers into my pocket. Right here." She bumped her hip against Joanna's butt. "Get the keys out. There's a knife on the key chain. We'll cut the ropes."

Joanna groped toward the pocket.

"You can do it," Zelda said, when after the third try Joanna started crying again. "Just keep trying. That's all it takes, just trying and trying until it works."

"It's so hot in here." Joanna's fingers flailed at the pocket's edge. "It's so stuffy. We're going to suffocate!"

"We will not suffocate. I will gnaw my way through the walls if I have to, but we have plenty of air for now. Just keep. On. Trying." Zelda took a deep breath.
I will not lose my temper. Or my cool.
"Maybe if I lean over you won't have to reach in so far."
Please, please, please.

Joanna heaved and shoved and strained, and got nowhere. "It's no use," she wailed. "I can't do it. I can't see, and my shoulders hurt, and my fingers are going numb, and my wrists are killing me!"

That's because they were bleeding. "You don't have any choice," Zelda hissed. "Just keep trying. Focus. Concentrate. It's not all that hard!"

Joanna screamed and thrashed and banged her bound feet against the floor. "How do you know how hard it is? You're so fucking perfect! Can't you get scared and cry like a normal girl?"

What?

Embrace the vampire destiny,
her mother would say.
Give her what she needs.

Since the alternative to sacrificing her cool was likely embracing death instead--for both of them--Zelda jumped on it with gusto and relief. "What makes you think I'm not crying?" She let her voice tremble, now that she could. She had to, if it would comfort Joanna. She sniffled. "Just because I don't cry a lot doesn't mean I'm not scared. Besides, I'm saving it for later."

"Saving what? You're talking about sex now?"

Zelda gave a snort of near-hysterical laughter. "Not my virginity, dummy. My
tears
. I'm saving them for when we get out and I can hug my mom and cry buckets." She allowed herself a sob and then bit hard. Blood again. "Try again. Please. You are the Queen of Persistence, and your subjects bow down to you in awe."

Joanna let out a tiny giggle, and sniffled hard and tried again, and a minute later the keys clinked onto the floor.

"Perfect! You saved our lives!" Zelda slid her butt forward, hooked a finger into the ring, and closed her hand around the knife, giving thanks to Constantine for providing her with this miracle tool. She felt around the edges of the little knife, slipped off the safety, placed her finger on the button, and popped the blade smoothly open. "Back-to-back, now." Several agonized minutes of sawing later, the rope binding Joanna's hands gave way. "Now you cut mine. It doesn't matter if you can't see. Do it by feel, and don't worry about cutting me." Zelda held still and waited and prayed, and it took too long, but eventually it was done. "Good job!" She flexed her fingers and eased her tormented shoulders, then grabbed Joanna's raw, bleeding wrists and spat on them before Joanna could stop her. "Slather it in. It'll help, I swear." She sawed through the ropes holding their feet. "Now we get the hell out."

Zelda rammed the knife into the drywall and set to work.

Gideon laid the second maple tree gently beside the first on an old blue tarp in the trunk of his Mercedes.

"That woman has bewitched you," the chief said.

"Uh-huh." Gideon laid the third maple tree beside the others. "Sure feels good."

"Gideon, I'm serious. I mean what I'm saying."

Gideon got the fourth tree. "You want to meet her, sir? If you see her, you'll understand."

"Goddamn right I'll understand," the chief said, "because I'm a normal man just like you. I did some nosing around last night, and you know what I found out? She's a vampire." Gideon raised his brows and quirked his mouth into the beginnings of a smile, and the chief said, "Damn it, boy, don't give me any sass. You think that vampire gene business is hogwash, but I'm older than you, and by God, I know better." He cleared his throat. "Slept with one, back in the day."

Wonders never ceased. "All the more reason for you to understand how I feel about Ophelia, sir." Gideon wrapped the blue tarp over the trees and unwound a coil of yellow nylon rope.

The chief glared. "You've slept with her?"

Gideon secured the rope to the trunk latch. "With all due respect, sir, my personal life is none of your business."

"You're having an affair with a
suspect
? Are you out of your cotton-picking mind?"

Gideon wound the rope around the trailer hitch below the license plate and tied it off. He straightened and faced the chief. "She's not a suspect, sir."

The chief threw up his hands. "My best detective seduced by a vamp." He stole a glance at Gideon and grinned in spite of himself. "Helluva lay, huh, boy?"

"She's going to marry me," Gideon said.

The smile morphed into an almighty scowl. "Jesus Christ, Gideon, that's just what I was afraid of. You can't marry a woman you've known for three days just because she's good in bed! These vamps may be hot as all hell, but they've got vicious tempers, and they're almost always associated with criminals of one kind or another."

"The underworld offers them protection from the crazies and lowlifes that won't leave them alone. I can offer her the same sort of protection. I know my own mind, and I know she's right for me. And since you know so much about vamps, you also know the county jail would not be safe for Ophelia."

"Where the hell else am I supposed to put her? I can't leave a murderer on the loose. Even Leopard and his goons have to understand that."

Gideon raised his eyes to heaven. "She's not a murderer. If she were dangerous, Leopard would have taken care of it by now." He opened the passenger door for the chief. "How about you ride with me today?"

"Donnie Donaldson isn't a murderer either," the chief protested. "He's a solid citizen. All you have are theories, Gideon, and not one ounce of proof." He got into the Mercedes.

The third anonymous phone call must have been coming into the station right at that moment, because they hadn't been on the road more than a minute when Gideon got the dispatcher's call. "Is the chief with you?" Jeanie asked. "He'll probably kill me for calling you instead of him. It's the same anonymous creep again. Wants to know why we haven't searched Ophelia's house."

"That's it?"

"Also why we're letting a murderess run around loose.
Murderess.
What a word. It's straight out of gothic romance. He was on a pay phone in Hammond."

"Which means he's at least twenty minutes away, closer to thirty," Gideon told the chief, hoping like hell during the whole drive to Ophelia's place. Yes! Donnie's driveway was empty.

"That doesn't prove a thing," the chief said.

"It doesn't eliminate him, either." Gideon pulled past Ophelia's house and parked beside the first of her compost piles.

"Damn," the chief said when he saw the bat house askew against the greenhouse. "Not a bad-looking bat house. The vandal do that?"

"There aren't any bats in there, only wasps." Gideon got out and opened the rear door for his dog. Gretchen leaped out and took off toward the chipper.