Sunrise in a Garden of Love & Evil (2 page)

"He's pissed off at me." Ophelia's eyes followed Lisa Wyler into the Colonial. "Looks like such a respectable place, doesn't it? But not all trash lives in trailers."

"He calls you trash? Is that why you're so bent out of shape?"

Ophelia responded with incredible cool. "Like I care what he thinks of me." She snorted, reached under the trailer, and pulled out a pile of half-gallon plastic pots. "I'm bent out of shape because...because he and his musician friends think they can have any woman they want. I have made it plain to them that this particular woman isn't available, but they don't like to take no for an answer." She separated the pots and set them in two neat rows beside her chair. "This mess is their petty revenge."

Gideon blinked, his brain starting to hum. Wyler and his friends might well want Ophelia--who wouldn't?--but he'd also seen her hesitation. "Is that the only problem?"

"That's not enough?" She was challenging him, smoldering on purpose now, just a touch, just to show him. Damn. Wars would be fought for this woman.

Still, things didn't add up. "What about your husband? Why would Wyler think he can sleep with you?"

"I'm not married," Ophelia said. "And no, I don't have a boyfriend either. I live here alone."

"Oh," Gideon said. "I thought--"

The icy stare was back, this time mixed with resignation. "Of course you did.
I'm
Beliveau Landscaping. Me, myself, and only I, with occasional help when I need it for installing fountains or planting big trees or laying sod."

"Sorry," Gideon said. "I assumed you were just into gardening, and that's why you're up to your elbows in dirt. I guess you just got back from work." He shifted and repeated with genuine contrition, "Sorry."

She gave a tiny nod that might have been acknowledgment. "Sexual stereotyping is the least of my problems. Anyway, that turd thinks I should be fair game, but I'm not, and he can't handle it. He's on drugs and he's a total dud, and I suppose even the musician mystique can't get him willing partners anymore."

"Trashing your garden seems like a stupid move. There has to be more to it."

"He's a stupid man," Ophelia said with a shake of her reddish brown curls. "I don't want to go into this any further. Thanks for your help. You can go now." Standing, she turned to watch a shiny red pickup head down Wyler's driveway to the road. It turned in the direction of town. "Well, what do you know? Maybe he
is
going to get new tires! It was worth it to call you, if only for that."

Gideon sauntered back to his car and got on the radio. "Jeanie," he told the dispatcher, "I'm still at Beliveau's place. If there's anyone between here and downtown, tell them to keep a lookout for a red Ford 350 pickup owned by Willy Wyler, who lives a few doors down from Beliveau. Follow him around, see what he's up to. If he tries to buy new tires, get the patrol to hover, make like he wants to see the old ones."

As he switched off the annoying blue flashing light, Gideon turned to find Ophelia scowling at him. "What was that about?" she demanded. "I don't want you meddling in my business."

"You shouldn't have called me, then. Just arranging a little police harassment. If there's a car between here and downtown, he'll follow Willy around, make him nervous."

Ophelia smiled, a delicate flush spreading across her face, and it almost knocked his socks off. "Thank you," she said, but then backed off as if burned. "God, I'm thirsty. Do you want a Coke?"

Hell, yes. "Sure."

She looked almost flustered, and wonder of wonders, she didn't have a husband. Or a boyfriend. Not that he seriously expected anything from this woman but grief, but as he realized for about the thousandth time, she was so damn fine. Still, he had to take a dig. "Corruption's not so bad when it's in your favor, now is it?" He wondered for a moment if he was about to lose the soda and also whatever more time drinking it could wangle, but Ophelia merely snorted once more, a brief, cynical sound, and headed for her trailer.

She was lithe and purposeful and unusually muscular for a woman--hardly surprising, considering her occupation. As she entered the trailer, Gideon's cell phone rang. He read the display and sighed. "What now, Art?" he answered, the speaker prudently away from his ear. "Your friend ready to come clean?"

His sister launched into another rant. Gideon turned the volume low, tucked the phone under his chin, and started working on the Beliveau incident report, noting the devastation of the vegetable garden and the pots and plants. A bat house, currently occupied by wasps, hung askew above the shattered panes of the greenhouse. He itemized the damage, ignoring the marijuana.

"We--the police--have two options," he said when Art finally ran out of breath. "Either your friend or another victim comes forward, or we wait till someone gets fed up and offs the guy. Which wouldn't be a bad thing in itself, but then we'd have a murder on our hands, and unfortunately we have to try to solve those." He looked up to see Ophelia holding out a can of Coke and raised a finger. "Your friend also has two options: pay up or fess up." He paused. "Of course she's scared. That's why blackmail works. Now, I gotta go, baby. I love you, too." He closed the phone, took the Coke, and followed Ophelia back to the plastic chairs.

"Your wife?" His hostess popped the top of her soda and took a long swallow, head thrown back, her throat a graceful, naked curve. She had washed her face and hands while she was inside, probably not for his benefit, but because she wanted to be clean. He could always hope, though.

"My sister. I'm not married." Gideon did his best not to grin. "Don't have a girlfriend, either." What the hell. He grinned.

"Don't even think about it," Ophelia snapped. "I'm not available."

Not think about it? Was there any choice? He spread his hands. "Did I say anything?" He grinned again. "But now that you've brought it up, why not?"

The woman glared and ignored him. "Who's being blackmailed?"

"Some neighbor of my sister's." He smiled at her again.

"That poor woman. She must be so freaked out." His hostess eyed him with loathing. The gray tabby from earlier slipped out from under the trailer and eyed him, too. "And you're not going to do a thing about it."

Christ,
thought Gideon,
they're all the same, even this one.
Why was he wasting his time? At his age, he should know better. "Not my problem until she reports it." He took a gulp of Coke and set the can beside his chair. It was time to finish the incident report and make his escape to the beer, the steak, and the three undemanding dogs.

He reached for the clipboard, but the tabby spat at him. "Psyche's not a friendly cat," Ophelia said, scooping the beast from under her chair. "Like me, she has a problem with men." Psyche purred and glared at Gideon with hot yellow eyes. "That's probably why she's still alive."

She sipped her soda, letting him figure that out. When he did, a cold claw of dismay clutched him. "You used to have another, friendlier cat, which your neighbor--?"

"Hung up on my front door a couple of days ago."

"What the hell?" Gideon half-rose, white-knuckle-gripping his chair.

The tabby hissed and dug claws into Ophelia's thigh, then took off under the house. She shuddered, eyes on the blood welling from the scratch. "Poor Psyche. You scared her." She licked a finger and wiped at the tiny red drops. Then, impatiently, without looking up, she said, "Don't get all worked up. It wasn't my cat. It was just an old stray and it was already dead. Hit by a car. I saw him lying next to the ditch when I left that morning, but I was late for a job so I planned to bury him when I got home." She sucked the blood off her finger, and Gideon thought he heard a small sigh. After a while, Ophelia raised her eyes. "I dumped the cat on Wyler's porch. Everybody's used to roadkill, and I figured the kids wouldn't understand the more sinister implications."

"Why didn't you report it?" Gideon stalked forward and barely stopped himself from grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. "What if he comes here when you're alone at night?"

"Oh, puh-lease," Ophelia said. "Wyler? Not his MO at all." She sighed again. "I regretted it right away. It was so disrespectful of that poor cat, which deserved a proper burial, and when I cooled down a little I realized it probably wasn't Wyler at all. He's childish and vindictive but not creepy."

She rose and turned away, but Gideon saw the shadow cross her face and pounced. "Someone else is, though? Damn it, Ophelia--"

She interrupted. "Unlike that poor blackmailed woman you're ignoring, I can take care of myself."

Christ. "I suppose you mean that shotgun. But what if he--whoever this is--breaks in and catches you asleep? Or comes over drunk with a bunch of his buddies? Tell me who this asshole is. I'll take care of him." He was burning to help.

"Nobody in particular," Ophelia said. She picked up a couple of trashed hostas, cupping their spiral roots in her hands. "Guys get a little fixated on me sometimes. No big deal."

"It's a big deal when they come over uninvited at night. It's an even bigger deal when they leave death threats on your door. You need to get a watchdog, at least. Do you have a cell phone in case someone cuts the wires?"

Ophelia scoffed. "Calm down." Tenderly, she lowered each hosta into a half-gallon pot. "I appreciate your coming here, but now you need to finish filling out that form and go away. I'll do fine."

Fine? Right. This was her problem, not his. Beer, steak, dogs. Then he looked at her again, at a tendril of curling auburn hair over her ear, at the swift passage of sadness as she tossed a damaged plant aside.

No, it was a huge problem, and definitely his.

"Ophelia," he began, then paused before giving it one more go. "What are you not telling me about all this?

"Nothing you need to know." She grabbed the incident report form, tore off her copy, and shoved the rest back. "Don't forget your plaster cast. It won't look legit otherwise. You can trash it when you get home."

"It's not dry yet. It'll be at least another hour."

"I'll take care of it, then. Like I told you before, I just wanted to scare the bastard. Now,
go
." She scraped a spiderweb out of a plastic pot and replaced it with the last lonely hosta, then hefted all eight newly filled pots and carried them to her truck.

"No," Gideon said. He planted his butt on the plastic chair, ignoring Ophelia's outraged stare, and picked up his can of Coke. "You're not taking this seriously enough. I have to take the plaster cast, and I have to make it clear to anyone who needs to know that you have protection now."

"I don't need--!" Ophelia began, but her words were drowned by the screams of AC/DC as a purple Z-300 skidded into the driveway and blasted to a stop three inches from Gideon's car.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

The car rocked to the beat of Violet Dupree's favorite band. Violet's daughter, Zelda, leaped out of the passenger seat, fingers still in her ears. "We negotiated!" she shouted to Ophelia over the din. "AC/DC now, vintage Enya the whole way home!"

Thank God they're here,
thought Ophelia, hurrying down the drive to hug her scrawny, freckled niece who, at almost thirteen, had begun to fill out but still showed no signs of the vampire gene. She held Zelda by the shoulders and scrutinized her face. The girl grinned. A nice grin, but not a vampire's. Not yet.

"Stop worrying," Zelda said. "What with Mom hoping for and you hoping against, I'm going nuts. What will be, will be. You got vandalized, huh? What a mess, but at least it got us back from shopping in New Orleans. Mom has no sense of style." Her eyes lit on Gideon, who was downing the last of his Coke. "Who's your friend?"

"He's not my friend. He's a very annoying cop. I'm so glad you guys are here." She grimaced. "How did Violet find out?"

"She's friends with the dispatcher at the cop shop, who said she was sending you a real babe." Zelda watched Gideon's approach with a critical eye. "Not bad looking for an old guy."

Violet got out of the car, swatted the radio off, and floated toward them in lime green chiffon and black lace. "Angel, baby, this is so dreadful!" She tossed herself into Ophelia's arms.

Ophelia hugged her half sister, inhaling deeply of her lavender scent. "Sorry your shopping trip got interrupted, but I'm so glad you came. I totally screwed this one up. Rescue me.
Please
," she whispered.

Violet smothered an exclamation, patted Ophelia on the back, and moaned artistically. "You're upset, poor angel! Well, no wonder, but...Hel-
lo
!" She favored Gideon with a long, lazy stare. "Just what the doctor ordered. So, you're the policeman Jeanie sent.
So
pleased to meet you, Officer O'Toole."

The detective took her in, suffered the inevitable reaction to a vamp, and chuckled. "My pleasure entirely," he said. "Miss...?"

"Violet Dupree. I'm Ophelia's sister." She smiled, turning on her allure full force.

"Charm must run in your family," the detective said, blinking. "I'm Gideon O'Toole." He took Violet's outstretched hand and bent his head to kiss it.

Zelda grinned and stuck out her own hand. "I'm Zelda. Violet's my mom."

He bowed over Zelda's fingers and pressed them gently to his lips.

Violet cocked her head to one side for one more evaluation, then turned to Ophelia. "No? He's quite a hunk."

Here we go again,
thought Ophelia, unaccountably depressed at running the same old scenario. She feigned an indifferent shrug. "He's all yours. If you want him, that is." She started back up the drive. "I have work to do."

Violet plucked at the wind tangles in her blazing orange hair. "Ophelia, are you positive? He's adorable."

Ophelia turned and made a face. "He's also the kind of creep who would hang around gawking at one woman, claiming he's there to protect her, while he ignores another one in genuine distress."

"Whoa," Zelda said. "Major dis."

Gideon's face darkened. "You have no idea what you're talking about, Ms. Beliveau, and no understanding of police procedure."

"Too bad I know so much about corruption and harassment," Ophelia retorted. She held his eyes for a long second and then had to let go. Work. She had to get back to work. Ignore the man. She headed toward her garden.

"Here comes Mr. Donaldson," Zelda remarked, her eyes on the neighbor's front porch. "Right on cue. Mr. Donaldson has the hots for my mom," she explained to Gideon. "Welcome to our soap opera. It's not your fault you're male. Be thankful you only have a bit part, because we're very hard on men."

She fished a grimy Pez dispenser from her pocket and offered Gideon a candy. He accepted it and said, "Thank you, Zelda." He watched the neighbor amble down his front steps. "Maybe he saw something. I'll go find out."

Ophelia whirled. "Don't you understand? I don't want you meddling in my life!"

"You shouldn't have called me, then." Gideon took the ditch to the next yard in one stride while pulling out his ID.

"You see?" Ophelia hissed to her sister. "Violet, I need to talk to you. Zelda, go inside and get some Cokes. Or tea. There's lemon in the fridge and mint around the back."

"He's just doing his job," Violet protested. "Which is awfully nice of him, considering how rude you're being. What happened to 'Violet dear, he's much more your type, I absolutely insist' or 'I still miss what's his name, I can't even look at another man' or even 'I'm coming down with mono again'?"

"I don't want him to do his job," Ophelia said. "He's already done everything I need. I want him to go away." Why had she told him about the cat thing? She followed Gideon with her eyes.

"But, angel," Violet said, "why not get some good out of the situation? I was so thrilled to hear you'd called him. And it turns out he's as attractive as Jeanie said, and a charming flirt as well, and you have to start again somewhere. So, why not?"

Ophelia retrieved six pots of ham-and-eggs lantana, due to be planted in the morning, and dumped them in her truck. "Vi, I called the
police
. Generic. It could have been a woman or a well-meaning wuss or even a happily married man--I can handle all those. But what did I get? A goddamn
hero
. Thank heavens the vandal didn't get these." She indicated a flat of impatiens, which she set next to the lantana. "Not that they'll have much chance of survival at the customer's place, but--"

"Ah," Violet interrupted. "But he isn't a wuss or a woman, is he? He's a stud."

Ophelia hunched a shoulder. "He is pretty good-looking." Pretty well built, too, with a lovely calm voice and--"

Can it.

Violet said, "Clearly it's a sign!"

Right. Fate again, flipping her the bird, dealing her another gorgeous male. Ophelia sighed and wiped the sweat off her brow, refusing to recall Gideon's strong hands mixing the plaster, the light breeze stirring the curls at the nape of his neck, the intoxicating aroma of pheromones in his sweat. Her eye alit on Gideon's bucket, three-quarters full of water, shining like a beacon in the afternoon sun. She picked it up and poured it over her head.

"Oh," Violet giggled. "I see."

Ophelia pushed her fangs back where they belonged and wrung out her T-shirt.

"You are a sorry mess," Violet said. "Turned on by your own blood, too, I suppose?"

Ophelia tossed two bags of cypress mulch into her truck. "I'm surviving. I've been hunting nutria."

"Ophelia, they're
rodents
! How vile!"

Ophelia shrugged. "They taste okay, and there's a bounty on the pelts." She took a roll of duct tape and a pair of scissors from the bed of the pickup, letting her eyes roam once more toward Gideon, relaxed and calm as he questioned Donnie Donaldson. She shook her head. What was it about this cop? "It's probably just a hormone surge." She handed Violet the scissors and unrolled a length of tape.

Violet snorted. She cut the tape where Ophelia indicated.

"I've made it through twenty-nine ovulations without a man," Ophelia remarked, trying to sound proud. She caught Violet's eye and laughed. "I've kept track. Pathetic, I know." She stuck the tape around a cracked pot, good enough for a day or two's use, and unrolled some more.

"Angel, I can find you a donor, or better still, a transition man, at the snap of my fingers. The club's full of them. A little human blood goes so much further, and with some good lusty sex as well, you'll be able to think straight again." Violet cut a couple more pieces of tape.

"Vi, to be in transition you have to be transitioning
to
something. I'm finished with men. Done. And the duct tape's finished, too, damn it." Brightly, she added, "If I calculate twenty more years of regular periods, that's only two hundred forty more ovulations to survive without sex." Her half sister shuddered, but Ophelia went on. "Of course I have to add the hormone surges just before my periods and during menopause, so--"

"Stop!" Violet clutched her temples. "Just thinking about all that deprivation gives me a headache. How about a woman? You've never shown any interest that way, but there've been some lovely lesbians at the club lately--"

"Violet, I'm not going to sleep with anyone of either gender." Ophelia nestled a salvageable holly into one of the mended pots.

Violet shook her head and tut-tutted. "Angel, you simply must have either blood or sex. Depriving yourself of both is downright dangerous. You'll get careless and the wrong person will find out you're a vamp. It's not worth the hassle." Eyes on Gideon, she asked, "Is he really a scumbag? Who is he supposed to be rescuing right now?"

Ophelia rolled her eyes, relieved at the change of subject. "It's a blackmail victim who won't come forward, and he's probably right that it's not officially his problem yet. But so what? He could at least make a push to find out who she is and help her, instead of hanging out here, pissing me off."
And turning me on.

Violet giggled again. "I know, such an inconvenience. He could cause several hormone surges a day all on his own." She frowned. "How does he know about her, if she won't come forward?"

Ophelia arranged sixteen pots worth of monkey grass in a huge plastic tub. "She's a friend of his sister. It wouldn't be all that hard for him to find out who she is, even if his sister won't say. All he has to do is get hold of her phone for a few minutes, look at the recent calls, and go from there." She slung the plastic tub into her truck, set what was left of the monkey grass in a smaller tub for Donnie Donaldson, and set that aside. "The minute he got off the phone with his sister, he came on to me."

"Angel, you can hardly blame him for that. Everyone comes on to you. I know, I know, being irresistible sucks. What possessed you to call the police? You have other options."

"Temporary insanity," Ophelia said. "I came home and saw my garden and went ballistic. I suppose you mean I should have called Leopard, but I don't like the underworld's methods, and I'm tired of being beholden to him. I thought a cop would come by in a patrol car. I figured he'd go gaga over me and do what I told him and then leave--done, finished, a small but effective warning to my neighbor. No thugs, no violence, no crap. Instead I get a nosy detective in a frigging Mercedes." She uncoiled the hose and watered all the repotted plants. "I can't stand people meddling in my life. We have to distract him."

"You'll do it very nicely in that wet T-shirt," Violet laughed. "Especially since you're not wearing a bra." The other shoe dropped. "Your
neighbor
did this? Not Donnie, surely!"

"Of course not Donnie. Willy Wyler did it."

Zelda picked her way down the steps from the trailer, balancing a tray with a pitcher of iced tea, three cans of Coke, tall ice-filled glasses, lemon slices, mint sprigs, and the sugar bowl, and set it on the table with minimal clatter. "I am so good at this! Almost good enough to work at the club. What about Willy Wyler?"

"He's the one who trashed my garden." Ophelia shook open a green trash bag and shoved in handfuls of pine straw from a broken bale. "He lives in that big Colonial house."

"Willy Wyler, the guitarist?" Zelda's big blue eyes opened their widest. "That's Joanna Wyler's dad. In fact, there's Joanna in the yard with her little sister." She wrinkled her nose. "Is that really
her
?"

Ophelia looked at her niece, trying to keep her voice neutral. "Is Joanna a friend of yours?"

Zelda pursed her lips. "I've known her since kindergarten, but she's too preppy to be friends with me. I can't believe the clothes she has on. Nobody wears cutoffs anymore. And chartreuse? Majorly passe. I never would have believed she owned clothes like that."

"You're wearing cutoffs," Ophelia said. "And chartreuse."

"I'm ahead of the times," Zelda said. "I guess it would be tacky to go say hi. I mean, with her father vandalizing your place and all. Poor Joanna. Oh, she's seen me." Zelda waved wildly at Joanna, who raised a limp hand, then did a double take and dragged her little sister into the house.

"Whoa," Zelda said. "Major put-down. Soap-opera subplot: the tormented lives of troubled teens. Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment." She poured a glass of tea and offered it to her mother.

Ophelia tied the trash bag shut and tossed it into the truck bed. "Vi, I'll need to leave some plants at your place for a few days until this blows over." Damn, it burned her up to give in even an inch to harassment, but she couldn't let that cop get any more involved.

"Of course, angel. Here come the men. Don't hyperventilate, now. Maybe
you
could come and stay with us, too."

Ophelia glowered in response.

"That's an excellent idea," Gideon agreed as he came up, Donnie Donaldson following eagerly. The detective's eyes strayed over Ophelia and lingered on her breasts, then moved to Violet with scarcely a flicker. "Especially considering the dead cat."