It would have been so much easier to denounce and renounce him, but she'd married him for better or worse, though knowledge hadn't killed love. She hadn't expected that. So she'd dutifully made that once a month trip to visit him within the grim confines of Angola. It hadn't been entirely without interest. The museum was quite fascinating and there were no illusions about the reality of prison life. There she knew exactly what she was dealing with.
By keeping her mind on how different the criminal world was from her own, she was mostly able to keep the aching loneliness for Verrol at bay. She'd always had a disciplined mind. Life had required it of her. But nothing in her life had prepared her for desire, for the wonder of curving her bony body into Verrol's spare one, or the sweet security that came from being hugged by him.
On some level, she knew her world was hopelessly out of phase, as if she'd been caught between two dimensions and was unable to live completely in either one. Logically, she was sure there had to be a way back to her own life, but her heart, even after ten years without Verrol, remained uncooperative. And now he was gone.
Dead.
Because he'd been absent for the last ten years, it was hard to process the permanence of this new reality. How easy it would be to pretend it was just a nightmare from which she'd soon awaken. He was still in prison, shuffling through afternoon exercise or in the library writing his weekly letter to her, filled with promises that they'd soon be together again.
She'd never known where he found his optimism. He'd chosen a bad time to commit murder. The country was big on accountability. The jury had given him life without possibility of parole, hardly breaking a sweat in the process. She didn't blame them. She used to be them until Verrol. How could they know what they hadn't experienced? How could they know that he was more than a murderer? How could they know that knowledge didn't necessarily kill love? Or was it just need she felt because she knew that no one would ever see her like he did, that she'd never again have love in her life?
Verrol's lawyer, Clinton Barnes, had been kind when he brought her the news. The people at the library had tried to be kind, though no one had any idea what the proper number of days off were for the death of a husband who was a killer. And they couldn't understand that she wasn't relieved he was dead, that for her it wasn't over yet. Beyond the loneliness were the funeral and another painful period of media attention, followed by a future stretching out into an endlessly bleak landscape.
If only there was more she could do than just bury Verrol. As if her brain had been waiting for that thought, it directed her gaze to the letter Barnes had brought her.
“Verrol wanted you to have this if anything happened to him in prison,” he'd said, his dark gaze both worried and curious as he handed it over.
Since he'd brought the letter, it had sat on her desk, unopened. She wasn't ready to deal with what might be in it. What if it answered the question everyone had wanted to know for ten years? Did she want to know who hired Verrol to kill Magus Merlinn? What good would it do now? If he'd told back when it first happened, it would have mitigated his sentence some. She'd begged him to talk, but he'd just shaken his head and told her not to worry. He was owed money and freedom and both would come in time. Yeah, that plan worked out well.
“I'd rather have had the last ten years, Verrol,” she told the empty room. She picked up the letter, because it was almost all she had left of him. It was possible the letter was just a last good-bye or maybe an explanation of how and why he'd become a killer. He knew her well enough to know she'd want to understand. It was a way for her to find closure.
And if it was about who hired him? She looked into the deep, dark places of her heart and found a longing for the person who hired Verrol to be punished. She wasn't proud of it, but in the dark of many a night, she'd railed against the unfairness of how things had played out. Why should that person have been able to continue living and loving while she slept alone for ten, long years? And now, not content with taking her past, her future had also been taken away.
Sometimes she wished she'd never met Verrol, but how could she regret the things she'd learned? Even with the pain of it, at least she'd lived life, not just read about it in books. No, she didn't regret meeting Verrol. She only regretted losing him and who she'd thought he was.
Tentatively, she picked up a letter opener. Once she opened it, there would be no going back. She wasn't the kind of person who could know something and not act on it, even without her personal feelings in the mix. For good or ill, this would change her life in some way. For a moment, she teetered on the edge, but in the end, how could she not open it? It was Verrol's last communication with her.
She inserted the point under the envelope and pushed it along the closed edge. The paper crackled with age as she pulled it free and unfolded it.
At first, all she could see was that it was in his handwriting, just like all the other letters she'd received from Angola, only on nicer paper. So he'd written it before prison, possibly before he was even arrested? Tears swam across her view, blurring the words that followed, “
My dearest Vonda..."
Dear, but not dear enough. Oh Verrol. If only...
Resolutely she wiped the tears and pushed back the regrets. She made herself focus on the words and not their dear shape and style. At the end, she began again. It was clever, the way he'd diverted attention away from the real clue.
And he'd given her one more chance to decide whether she'd go forward or back. How well he knew her and how much she missed feeling understood and known. She rubbed her forehead as longing tried to overwhelm her. Somehow, some way, she needed to stop living in the past. If that meant confronting it, then so be it.
And Verrol's mama? No one had known her connection to Verrol then, or apparently, now. Interesting that Verrol had chosen her to be his answer-keeper. She studied the words again. Had he left something at the library as a false clue? It would be just like him. He'd had a puckish sense of humor.
With a wry grin, she sat down. If she was brutally honest, and she always tried to be, she'd admit she was intrigued by both the answers and the money. How could she not be, she thought, looking around her dreary, lonesome apartment? She wouldn't, she couldn't take the money, but she was tempted. May God forgive her, she was tempted. Had Verrol known she would be? Or had he just hoped she'd reach out and take the freedom he was offering her?
“Oh, I can't think!” She rubbed her forehead again, trying to stop the headache before it got a foothold there. Almost impatiently, she looked for a distraction, spotted the remote, grabbed it and turned on the news. It was a shock to see there, on the screen, the Wizard's daughter.
“Did Vance tell you who hired him to kill your father?” someone was asking her.
“No, but he was going to.” She looked calm, reflective and just the right amount of sad.
“You seem quite sure.”
“I'm a million dollars sure.” Dorothy paused. It felt as if she looked out of the television straight into Vonda's soul. “That's how much I offered him to tell me.”
So that's why Verrol was dead. Vonda sagged back, as anger flared. How could she put him in danger like that? Anger quickly faded to shame. Of course she wanted to know who really killed her father, not just who pulled the trigger. And she'd been willing to let Verrol walk out of prison for that knowledge, with a bucket of money. Instead he was dead. Whoever did this thought he'd silenced Verrol, but he hadn't.
She looked at the letter again. His words were so like him, she could almost hear him saying them. How could he be dead?
Dead?
Gone. Erased to keep a filthy, little secret about who really wanted the Wizard dead.
What a pitiful reason for taking a life. And the money Verrol had taken to kill? I'm a hypocrite, too. I can forgive Verrol, but not who hired him.
She rubbed her face again, studying Dorothy through her fingers.
In a strange way, they were in the same boat. They both wanted justice. They both wanted the secrets to come out. And the million dollars of “clean” money Dorothy dangled out there as bait? It shamed her, but she had to admit that was part of her justice. It wouldn't be a bad bargain for Dorothy. She'd been going to pay for the information anyway. She'd get her answers, and Vonda would get a ticket to a different life, one away from people who knew her as the “killer's wife.”
She gave a half laugh that broke in the middle. The killer's wife and the wizard's daughter. Sounded like a bad book title.
It was also someone's worst nightmare.
FIVE
* * * *
Luckily Dorothy had a little, formal something in her closet, since Remy hadn't given her much warning about tonight's big do at the Audubon Zoo. Good thing that something was also light and cool, and perfect for the hot, May night. The same shade violet as her eyes, it slinked its way lovingly down her body, finishing in a slight, sassy flare at the ankle. Her shoes looked uncomfortable and weren't, thank goodness, since the party would be ranging all over the zoo, both on the pavement and off. Her hair had been styled to a point of wild abandon, while her make-up gave her a mysterious, almost exotic look. In fact, she looked and felt nothing like herself. The odd part, she didn't mind. Was it because of Remy or just events in general?
He did look smashing. It would be too easy to look adoringly at him, with his stocky frame nicely covered in a well-fitted tuxedo and a sexy, satisfied smile creasing his face. It was getting harder and harder to keep her feet on the ground, so she looked away from him, instead, watching as Titus pulled the SUV into the space indicated by the uniformed cop. A bus would take them to the zoo's entrance, since Titus, in his role as bodyguard, didn't want to let her out of his sight. Around them thronged the beautiful, the not-so-beautiful people, the rich or those who knew someone who could buy them tickets. All of them streamed through the fading light of day toward party zero. As Dorothy joined that stream, it felt as if her world had been reversed, with the unreal relegating real to a minor role.
Around them were tall oak trees dripping with Spanish moss and age, their limbs bent and sweeping the ground as if herding them along. The silken, sultry air slipped across her skin like a lover's caress, but was almost too thick to breathe in and heavily weighted with the scents of a New Orleans night. There was the smell of flowers, of course, and also the richly pungent odor of green stuff, but also the spicy bite of the food awaiting them inside the zoo.
The music from the “do” was too loud for the buzz of insect life to be heard, but they were felt in gentle passes against her face or the occasional diving bite on bare skin. In between beats of music, there was the sound of many voices, punctuated by laughter in a variety of pitches.
There was a festive feel to it all, but it was still an odd sort of party, Dorothy decided. Despite the density of the crowd, they were all strangers, leaving her feeling very alone, even isolated. She could probably count on one hand the people she knew. And one of them was probably a killer. Remy had more acquaintances that he could nod or exchange greetings with, which made her feel disconnected from him, too. Titus was the specter at the feast as he stalked behind her.
It was, she decided, like moving through a very vivid dream. The flash of lights, the chatter of people, the multitude of colors, the distant sounds of the zoo animals, and the ebb and flow of the crowd brought some things into sharp relief and left others blurred or in shadow. There was clarity and confusion warring for dominance, with no clear winner possible.
She knew she was under scrutiny by those in the know, but it wasn't really her they were looking at. All they were seeing was the illusion she'd created in her hotel room this evening. Smoke and mirror effects, bought with Magus's money.
Before returning to Louisiana, she'd gone back to the diner where she and her mother had worked. It had felt as alien as this place did. No one had known her there either. She dangled between two lives, two worlds, trying to find a place to plant her feet and build a life, if she survived her dangerous dance with Remy Mistral and their suspects.
As if her thought made them emerge from out of the crowd, she saw Bozo with a top heavy blonde, then Bubba with his cold fish wife. Beautiful people pretending to do their best to help the Audubon Institute continue their good works in behalf of things beast and growing green. In reality, they were there to have a good time. To dance and drink, to see and be seen.
And if she could be anywhere else right now, where would that be? As if in answer to the question, Remy's grip on her arm tightened, pulling her closer to the lean, hard length of him. The jolt of it plunged her back into the present.
“Show time,” he said, gazing at her with pretended interest as the news people milling around the entrance caught sight of them. It felt like they were hit with a thousand watts of blinding light. She gripped Remy's arm, tried to keep her face as interested and focused on him while they pushed through the awful din of shouted questions. Just when she thought she couldn't take it anymore, they passed through the gates to freedom. She waited while Remy handed over their tickets and received programs in return and then they were in the nighttime zoo.
She'd been here only once before, making a solo appearance for Magus. A daytime, Cajun thing. There'd been special food booths and pockets of music in a variety of styles. Despite the cushion of handlers steering her around, she'd enjoyed it very much. The zoo was beautifully laid out and invited exploration.
This zoo was nothing like that memory. It didn't even seem like the same place, with areas of deep dark surrounding places of brilliant light. Her first, awful thought was how easy it would be to kill someone here. There was too much of everything: people, noise, light and dark. And in the dark, out of sight, wild animals watched them, or at least if felt like they did. Yes, they were caged, but that didn't comfort somehow. All around her, the humid air throbbed with the emotions of the excited crowd.