Sunrise in a Garden of Love & Evil (29 page)

"Go to Ophelia's or to my place," Joanna squeaked. "Go call the cops while you can."

Next nail: jam, wrench, wrench. "And leave you alone in here? No way."

"I'll be okay." The quaver in Joanna's voice said that she definitely wouldn't.

"You'll die in there alone, remember?"
Crap. My big mouth does it again.

"Zelda, don't be mean to me! I'm trying!"

"Sorry," Zelda panted. "I know you are." So much for patience. So much for tact. "I'm the one who's losing it." The third nail came out. "Oh, shit."

"What?"

"I just heard Donnie's truck." Joanna stoically cut off a whimper, and Zelda's heart squeezed.
Patience and tact, step aside. Fury is taking over.
Zelda narrowed her eyes at the nail in her hand, at the closet, at a scattering of unused nails on the floor...

Got it!
"I'll nail the bedroom door shut." Zelda drove the first nail into the closed bedroom door at an angle where it abutted the frame, just as Donnie had done with the closet. "Then I'll get you out." Second nail. "Then we'll make a plan. He can't stop both of us."
He sure as hell can't stop me.
Bam, bam, wham! Third nail. By the time Donnie slammed the back door shut, the fourth nail was in. She dragged the chair across the room and whacked more nails into the top and the other side of the door.

Donnie's footsteps pounded up the stairs. He rattled the door handle, but the door didn't budge. Yes! He spat out curses and banged on the door, and Zelda whammed home another nail. "Go away, you old creep," she hollered. "How dare you have a picture of my mother?" She hauled the chair to the closet as Donnie's footsteps thumped down the stairs.

"Here's the strategy," she said, yanking at the highest nail. "He'll break the door down eventually. Our plan is to get past him. Discombobulate him enough that we get out and down the stairs. If we manage to hurt him, great, but the focus is on getting at least one or both of us away."

"We can't get out the window?"

"Last resort," Zelda said.
Two more nails.
"It's a long way down, and you can't run away if your leg is broken. Oh, why isn't Ophelia here?"

"Or my mom." Joanna sniffled.

Zelda bit back her opinion of Joanna's mom. "Weapons," she said. "This hammer, for one." She wrenched at the last nail. "The bedside lamp." One last yank, and the nail slipped free. She opened the closet door, and Joanna stumbled out. She grabbed Zelda and hugged her tight. Zelda hugged her back. "We're almost there."

Donnie was on the stairs again, so she let go. Her fangs quivered and her heart rammed against her chest. "Any weapons in the closet?"

"Stinky old shoes?"

"Sure. Bring them all out." Zelda yanked the lamp cord from the wall. "Bash him with this. I'll take the hammer. The shoes are the second line of defense."

Joanna took the lamp. "Zelda, your mouth is bleeding!"

"Don't I know it," Zelda replied, clutching her jaw with her free hand as her fangs fought for freedom and Donnie commenced his assault on the door.

"You have the right to remain silent!" said the chief.

Ophelia spoke through clenched teeth, through quivering fangs she could barely suppress. "And you have the obligation to shut up and help me!" The gun at her back didn't budge. "Here comes a hysterical mother. That's two missing girls! Can't you see?" She pointed with the shotgun, one by one. "Pill. Earring, Earring, Earring." And one more earring by Donnie's back steps. "Zelda and Joanna are in there!"

Lisa panted to a halt. "Joanna's at Donnie's?"

The chief brandished the purple vibrator, jabbing the gun into Ophelia's back. "Ms. Beliveau, that's the stupidest attempt to divert my attention I've ever seen. Drop the gun."

"Maybe you should holster yours, since you know so little about gun safety. If I drop it, it might go off." She heard frantic hammering inside Donnie's place. What the hell?

Lisa stared. "Is that a vibrator?" She snickered, but the smirk faded. "Who are you? Why are you pointing a gun at Ophelia?"

The chief reddened and threw the vibrator down. He moved around beside Ophelia, trailing the gun across her back, and grabbed the shotgun. "I'm the chief of police, ma'am, and Ms. Beliveau's implicated in three murders. I need you to go on home. Ms. Beliveau's a dangerous woman. No telling what she might do."

"Goddamn right I'm dangerous," Ophelia said. "Donnie's the murderer, not me. All I want is to rescue those girls before Donnie kills them, too." She shuddered with impatience. "Come on, Lisa. Stand up for me!"

"Bullshit," said the chief. "I saw those nudie pictures in your house--"

"Where Donnie planted them. He knew about that compartment. He made it for the guy who lived here before me." Lisa Wyler was dithering between Ophelia and the cop. "For cripes sake, Lisa, we've been through this already. You know I wouldn't hurt Joanna. Donnie was in cahoots with the creep who blackmailed you. He took all your savings, and now he's taking your house. He even encouraged Willy's drinking binges. What have I ever done to you? Go break down his door." She raised her voice. "Tell him the cops are here. Demand to search his house for your daughter--"

"Shut up!" The chief stuck the shotgun under his arm and clicked the radio button on his phone. "I need backup. Beliveau's place. Send at least one female officer, and quick."

"There are children at risk," yelled Ophelia. "Make sure it's a woman with brains!"

"Goddamn it, girl!" the chief bellowed. An indignant squawk issued from the radio and the gun in Ophelia's side wavered. "No, not you, Jeanie. You know I wouldn't yell at you. It's Ms. Beliveau. She's a vicious criminal, and she's making a ruckus for no reason at all."

Crashing, smashing noises and a shrill scream came from Donnie's house. Damn,
damn!

"Give me a break," Jeanie said. "Backup is on the way. Hold tight, Ms. Beliveau."

"Goddamn it, Jeanie," the chief roared.

"Thank you!" Ophelia called.

A window on the second floor of Donnie's house splintered and a gilded lamp plummeted to the ground. Its red lampshade bounced and rolled away. "Help!" Joanna shrieked. "Call the police!" The cop's gun wavered even more.

"Asshole!" Zelda hollered. A shoe came through the window, followed by a cry of such agony that the world stood still.

Ophelia knocked the gun out of the chief's slackened grip, seized the shotgun, and made for Donnie's back door. She smashed the window with the butt of the shotgun, reached in, and opened the door. She leaped up the stairs and lunged through what had once been a bedroom door.

"Stay back!" Wild-eyed, a cracked picture frame on his head, blood smeared on his scalp, Donnie Donaldson tightened an arm around a thrashing Joanna. In his other hand he gripped a screwdriver. "Put the gun down. I'll skewer her, I swear." His voice shook, and so did the hand that held the screwdriver.

Ophelia laid the shotgun gently on the floor. Joanna's struggles slowed as she fought to breathe against Donnie's deathly clasp. An old sneaker fell from her hand. Zelda rose from her knees, a trickle of blood running over her lip. "It's okay, Joanna," Ophelia said. "Donnie doesn't really want to hurt you." Lisa's voice, shrill with hysteria, rose through the window. "Your mom's down there, and so are the cops. It'll be all right."

"Nothing will ever be all right again." Donnie's voice broke. "Would you believe my asshole of a partner wanted to blackmail you for sex? I gave you so many chances, and you still screwed everything up. Why couldn't you just sell me your land, you stupid, stupid bitch?"

Because...

No. This was not her responsibility. This was not her fault.

"You should have told me about your plans, Donnie," Ophelia said sadly. "We would have worked something out." But no, it wasn't her fault. Ophelia widened her eyes at Zelda, crawling bloody-mouthed up from the floor, shiny new fangs extended, eyes on fire. Oh, shit. "Zelda, it's okay. Stay down. You don't have to do this."

Donnie's eyes flicked to Zelda. He yelped, stumbled backward over a sledgehammer, and dropped Joanna. She hit the floor with a thud and a crack, and her eyes slid shut. Donnie seized the sledgehammer and scuttled backward.

"He scared my friend," Zelda sobbed. She licked the blood off her lips. "He
hurt
her. She may even be dead."

"She's not dead," Ophelia said. "She's just unconscious. Stay out of the way."

Donnie gripped the sledgehammer and eased sideways toward the bedside table. Shit, again. Where were the cops when you
needed
them?

"Let me go to my baby!" Lisa sobbed from below.

"Ouch! Get us some backup!" roared the chief. "Male backup! Somebody sane! Some crazy woman's clobbering me with a vibrator!"

"He has the hots for my
mother
," Zelda snarled. "I'm going to rip him apart."

"No, you aren't." Ophelia slotted down her fangs.
I survived this. I can survive it again.
"I am."

Donnie eased open the drawer in the bedside table, and Ophelia crouched to spring.

"The hell with that," Gideon said from the doorway.

Donnie pulled out a handgun, and Gideon shot him dead.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-SIX

Joanna and her mother had gone to the hospital in an ambulance. Donnie's body went in another ambulance to the morgue. Two sorts of backup had shown up: two cops, one the promised female, and Constantine.

"Gideon called me," the rocker said with a twisted grin. "Thought I might be needed."

The police chief, now Gideon's fervent supporter, wandered through the scene, rehearsing his statement to the press. Ophelia mothered Zelda until Violet arrived, and then walked quietly away to inspect the maple trees Gideon had planted. His car still stood next to the chipper. She looked at the car and the trees again and wondered, but when Gretchen bounded over to snuffle eagerly at the trunk of the Mercedes, she knew for sure.

Ophelia gave a short statement to the female cop, and Zelda, holding a tissue to her mouth, gave an even shorter one. "This is it, Gideon?" a member of the crime-scene crew quipped. "No more bodies for a couple of days?"

Zelda flexed her jaw and surreptitiously fingered her fangs. She huddled on Ophelia's steps beside her mother, whose white lace top was streaked, liked Ophelia's, with Zelda's blood.

"They're not supposed to rip out of your gums like that," Violet said over and over again. "Poor sweetie. My poor, poor baby."

"There was no choice," Ophelia said. "It was a case of sprout her fangs or die."

Violet shuddered but said, "Stop playing with your fangs, Zelda, or the cuts will never heal. Your saliva will handle only so much."

"Be thankful she didn't have to use them," Ophelia said.

"I'm thankful neither of you had to. Ripping people apart is simply ghastly. Not that I've ever done it, but I can imagine--"

Actually, you can't.
Ophelia and Constantine exchanged glances, and Constantine winked. And then laughed.

Finally, Gideon beckoned to Ophelia. She walked away with him, guiding him a lot farther from the others than he deemed necessary. He had a lot to learn about living with vamps.

"Everyone can go home now," he said. "We'll get signed statements later. Our guys found a couple of trash bags of photo-shop stuff at the Taylor Road dump, right next to a roll of carpet cushion and some computer equipment. I'll make sure no one's secrets get out. Art's job is safe, and Andrea and her kids can come home."

Ophelia breathed him in, his scent and his strength, and waited for whatever came next.

He held out the keys to his car, to his house, to his entire future, and spoke very low. "Unless you have something urgent to do here, why not take my car--by yourself--and go dig up my mother's rose garden?" Apparently he mistook the reason for her hesitation, for he added diffidently, "Unless...You have other resources to take care of things, if you'd prefer."

Ophelia glanced at Constantine, lounging darkly in one of the plastic chairs, a little smile hovering on his lips. She turned away, feeling Constantine's smile grow. "You don't have to do this," she told Gideon, not meaning it at all.

"Just don't plant daisies," Gideon said.

In the light of the full moon, they lowered Johnny's bones into the hole Ophelia had dug in Gideon's garden. "I couldn't leave him to Constantine," Ophelia said. "Maybe I would have, if he'd been in town when it first happened. But now..." She tossed in a shovelful of dirt and stopped to lean on her shovel. "Constantine might have dumped him in a swamp. I couldn't do that."

"Most people don't end up under a beautiful garden," Gideon said. "Johnny is being cared for far beyond his deserts, and eventually Marissa will be able to declare him dead and move on with her life." He threw one shovelful after another into the grave. "Constantine already played a highly useful role."

"He's always been a good friend to me, but I didn't want this"--she gestured with her shovel--"to be Constantine's problem. Only mine." Ophelia sighed. "And now it's yours."

"Ours," Gideon said.

When the grave was full, Ophelia led the way back toward the house. "I still don't understand. You're a cop. You have to take homicide seriously. You're not supposed to cover it up, even if you think it was self-defense. I appreciate it, but..."

"Do you have a better solution?" Gideon asked.

Ophelia propped her shovel against the deck. She shook her head.

"Even if I didn't take into consideration my own skin and yours, how would justice be served if you went to jail?" Gideon asked. "Even if you survived that, even if Lep didn't kill me and possibly my boss, you'd spend endless time, and money you don't have, trying to prove it was self-defense, and even then you'd probably end up serving time. As it is, the only person I can't help out is Marissa Parkerson, and frankly, weighing things in the balance, I just don't care. I do my best to work things out fairly for as many people as possible. No way I'll follow rules and procedure if they make matters worse."

Ophelia raised her eyes to Gideon. It had to be said: "I'm not a trusting sort of person."

"You mean I
still
haven't earned your trust?" He didn't sound upset. He chuckled as he set his shovel next to hers and went to free the dogs from their pen. "Even if I weren't such a trustworthy guy, you've got me by the balls now in too many ways to count."

"It's not right." Ophelia rinsed her hands long and carefully under the outdoor tap. "But I still want the garden. And I want you."

"And my finger. Mustn't forget that." Gideon followed her up the steps to the deck and pulled her onto his lap on a bench by the wall. She leaned uneasily against him. The night breezes sighed and the milling dogs subsided one by one onto the deck.

"It's not going to be easy," Ophelia said. "It's never going to be safe."

"Works for me," Gideon said. "Tell you what. You don't have to trust me, but I get to glare at you suspiciously anytime I like."

"It's a deal," Ophelia said, smiling a little now, twining her fingers into his and relaxing into his embrace.

For a long time they stayed there, in love in a twisted garden, and at last the sun rose on a brighter day.