Read Sunrise in a Garden of Love & Evil Online
Authors: Barbara Monajem
"Tsk." The chief wandered toward the bat house. "I could have helped her with that. Damn shame she's going to jail."
"Now who's lost their objectivity? If there's something in her house, it's another plant. And if you had let me put someone on surveillance here..." But the chief wasn't listening, so Gideon didn't waste his breath. He untied the ropes holding the trunk and unloaded the trees.
The chipper choked to a halt. "Goddamn this fucking machine to hell!" came Ophelia's furious voice, followed by a panicked roar. "No! Gretchen, put that down!"
Gideon surged forward at a run but stopped short. Fangs full down, Ophelia grappled with Gretchen in the dirt, ripped a bone from between her jaws and tossed it into a hole behind her.
What the fuck? "Gretchen. Come here."
The dog scrambled to obey. Ophelia picked up a shotgun from beside the chipper, her eyes flickering here and there, a wave of vampire energy and terror slamming into Gideon. Gretchen skidded to a halt beside him, whimpering. Ophelia leveled the gun in their direction.
Deja vu, except this time Ophelia wasn't acting cool.
The chief, still by the greenhouse, threw himself to the ground. "Get down, damn it!" He groped for his gun.
"She won't shoot me," Gideon said in a loud, clear voice. "I can't say the same for you, Chief, so you'd better stay put."
"What the hell do you want?" Ophelia's voice shook with rage and fear.
"Gideon," the chief implored.
"I mean it, sir. Gretchen,
stay
. Guard the chief." Gideon picked up two maple trees and walked calmly toward Ophelia. "Having problems?"
Ophelia backed toward the chipper, her shotgun wavering in the general direction of the chief. "Why are you here?" she croaked. "Why did you have to come?"
"To bring the trees." Gideon tried a light, carefree voice. It wasn't easy, faced with fangs full down and another blast of allure. "Sorry we surprised you, honey. It's understandable that you'd be in a state of nerves, but...Ah, I see you've already dug a hole."
Ophelia lowered the gun and leaned trembling against the chipper, her face pale with misery, her eyes empty of hope. Gideon walked right past her, eyeballed the big thigh bone in the hole and a few others poking up. He set one of the trees down on top of them. He put the other tree on the ground beside the hole. Jesus Christ. He sure hadn't figured this one right.
He went right up to her. "You couldn't have waited till later?" he said in a low, savage voice, unable to contain his fury at her recklessness, his fear at her peril. "He's been here for two fucking years, hasn't he?"
Ophelia gaped. "You knew?"
Sort of. But there was no time to explain.
Ophelia's whisper was harsh, but her eyes betrayed her. "When was I supposed to do it? I can't run the chipper at night!"
Gideon found his voice again. "You couldn't have waited a day or two till this other fiasco was over? Until you were a tad less likely to be caught?"
Ophelia's knuckles whitened around the barrel of the gun. "You were supposed to be at the dump this morning. If you knew, why did you come here?"
"I didn't know, but..." It wasn't the time to bring up the trust issue again, but by God she would hear about it later. He signaled to the chief to stay back and forced himself to speak low and calm. "I assumed Constantine had killed him."
"He was on tour at the time."
And she'd been all alone. "What happened? Did Parkerson attack you? Rape you?"
Ophelia drooped. "He tried."
Gideon let out a long, harsh breath. "Then he got what he deserved." He let that sit. "But you can't put him through the chipper."
Ophelia shuddered. "No." She closed her eyes. "But I wanted you so badly, you and your garden, and I've been stuck out here by myself with him and those awful dreams for so long...I couldn't think of any other way." She shuddered again. "I guess it doesn't matter now."
"You're right, it doesn't. This is one hell of a mess." Gideon put an arm around her. She cringed and curled into herself, but he pulled her closer anyway and deposited a kiss on her hair. "I need you to vamp the chief."
"What?" She looked blank. Almost absent. Damn.
"You've got to get him on your side." The chief was getting to his feet now, scowling in their direction. Gideon picked up a sizeable twig and poked it tentatively into the chipper. "Do whatever you vamps do. He's obsessed with bats, which might be useful. Take him on a tour of your bat houses and go heavy on the allure."
Wake up, girl,
he wanted to say.
Don't go all emotional on me now.
"He thinks you've bewitched me."
"And have I?" She sounded desperately sad.
"No doubt about that." Gideon stifled his impatience with a smile. "Listen, honey, the chief's a stubborn old fart with a one-track mind. He won't buy my theories about Donnie, and this morning there was another anonymous call saying to search your house. If you can arouse the chief's chivalrous instincts--"
"Unfortunately, that's not all that will be aroused," Ophelia said.
"I'm not asking you to sleep with him." Gideon resisted the urge to shake her. "He knows you're a vamp, he's been with one himself, and he knows enough about vampires to be wary of their legendary tempers. Trust me, if you can show him you're a desirable, sweet-natured woman who values his advice about bats, he'll want to shift tracks." He took her by the arm. "Perk up, Ophelia. You've dealt with this for a long time. You can't afford to give in to your emotions now." He guided her toward the chief. "I have to go make some calls."
Her eyes flicked miserably toward the grave. "But, Gideon, what about...Gideon, I know you're a cop, but do you have to get involved with this? Don't you understand what it means?"
"I don't have any choice," Gideon said.
Hemmed in by trust and betrayal, Ophelia hustled the police chief to the river, tossing out allure and making no effort to control her fangs. In the clearing by the water, she relented long enough to let him appreciate the bat houses, because his enthusiasm was so genuine. After a while she led the march toward home. Time to dump the chief back on Gideon and get on with going straight to hell.
Gretchen had other ideas. "I don't want your dumb dog along," Ophelia had told Gideon, but he'd said, "Please take her," visibly controlling his annoyance, and she still didn't know why she'd gone along with it. Why help him safeguard the remains that would send her to prison? "Get out of my goddamn way," Ophelia told the dog four times along the track and once more as they finally neared the end of the woods. "Stop trying to comfort me, damn it." Gretchen bumped her flank gently against Ophelia's.
"Don't burden him with your past," Constantine had said, and now she knew why.
Gideon was a cop. He'd found evidence of a homicide. True, she'd been defending herself. True, it hadn't been her fault. Still, he had no choice but to report it. Except that he'd promised she'd always be safe with him. And she had believed him, even in her sleep.
Gretchen jostled Ophelia again, and the chief hollered something tedious about stopping or shooting. Asshole. Tapping her toe on the dirt track, Ophelia waited for the old man to catch up. In this mood, she doubted she could have sweetened him up even if she'd been trying. Briefly, she considered bopping him on the head--gently, just to get him out of the way--and going on the run. But setting aside the loneliness of such a life, she shriveled at the thought of being caught and dragged back to Gideon in chains, so to speak, after he had--
get this
--trusted her. It would be more dignified--she almost laughed--to give in now. To disregard the simmering rage since he had waved her and the chief toward the river while he leaned uncaringly on his Mercedes and made his calls.
It didn't make sense. It felt terrifyingly wrong. And some foolish part of her, deep inside, still wanted to trust him. A wasp sailed by, and she envied its life uncomplicated by murders and incomprehensible cops. Didn't he know what would happen to him after she ended up in jail?
No. For the umpteenth time, she shut out that horrifying thought.
We'll see each other in hell.
She stifled a hysterical giggle.
The chief came up beside her, wheezing. "Where is that damned Gideon?" he gasped. "I should fire him: sleeping with a suspect, disappearing in the middle of a murder investigation, leaving me in the clutches of a vampire--" He grew more and more incensed, and the wasps had picked up on his mood. One zoomed out of the wonky bat house, and then another.
"I've hardly vamped you at all," Ophelia said. "You're in a lot more danger from these wasps than from me. All Gideon wants me to do is convince you that I'm innocent." She shifted the shotgun on her shoulder.
"You'd look a lot more innocent if you put that gun down."
"We already discussed this, mister," Ophelia said. "I don't trust you any more than you trust me." She grinned at him, fangs and all.
"Don't do that," groaned the chief, wiping his brow on his sleeve.
Ophelia stuck out her tongue, making the old cop shudder and hurry away toward the greenhouse. Gretchen stuck out her tongue, too, and lolloped in the direction of the chipper and the gruesome hole in the earth. Idly, since it didn't matter anymore what Gretchen dug up, Ophelia watched her go. Over the top of the chipper, past the last of the compost piles, poked the tops of three young Japanese maples, two upright and one bent, in a tight row.
A tiny door of hope opened in Ophelia's mind. She tried to shut it again, but the door was open and she desperately wanted it to stay that way. He'd said she should trust him.
From over in the direction of the chipper she heard him, a muffled curse the chief would never catch, and the soft click of a car door.
The older man's voice interrupted her scurrying thoughts. "After you spray the wasps," he was saying, his eyes on the bat box hanging askew on the vandalized greenhouse, "clear out all the empty nests. Then I'll take a look at the inside and see if you need to redesign the roosting spaces." He shook his head. "I don't know why I'm telling you this. You're going to prison for the rest of your life."
"I'm
innocent
, you dumbass cop. I'll clean it out after the wasps leave on their own. I don't kill anything I don't have to." It about killed
her
not to look toward the chipper.
The chief snorted. "You can't go around with a gun in your hand and fangs in your mouth and say you don't kill anything."
"Of course I can. It's the truth." If only she could see what Gideon had done.
Donnie's truck pulled up in the driveway next door. The idiot chief gave the murderer a friendly wave. "Where the hell is Gideon?" he said again.
Any minute now the chief would find Gideon, but Gideon might need more time.
Ophelia whipped her shotgun into position and eyed Donnie down the sights. "How about I put him out of his misery now?" Donnie froze halfway from the truck to the porch. The chief swore and went for his gun, but Ophelia shot him a mesmerizing smile. "He'll suffer a far worse fate at Leopard's hands. Consider it a mercy killing." Donnie edged toward his back stairs.
The chief dragged his gun out of its holster, hands shaking, fighting her allure.
Ophelia lowered the shotgun. "Calm down," she told him. "I'm not really going to shoot him. It was just a joke." Donnie sprinted for the door.
"Lousy joke," the chief growled as Donnie made it to safety. "Where the fuck is my detective?"
Ophelia answered with another dazzling smile. "Who knows? I need to freshen up. Come and wait for Gideon at my place. It's getting hot out here."
The chief melted under that smile. "Shit," he said, "I can't believe that after all these years, an old man like me--"
"Some things never change." She herded him toward the back stairs, riding high on hope and trust, when she caught sight of the bike.
Zelda's bike, stashed to one side of the porch.
Zelda was here? Since when?
Ophelia hopped up the back steps. The hook on the screen door had been popped, and the shim lay where Zelda must have dropped it. Ophelia hurried indoors. "Zelda?"
Only Psyche answered, with a querulous meow. The skin on Ophelia's scalp prickled. Why were her earrings lined up in pairs on the kitchen table? And the Midol on the counter...She hadn't put it there. Psyche showed up in the entrance to the hall, spied the chief, and spat.
"Sit down," Ophelia said. The chief must have started thinking straight again, for he only reluctantly obeyed. "Don't touch the cat. She hates men." Ophelia made a quick pass though the house: living room, spare bedroom, bathroom, her own room.
"Where are you going?" The chief blundered down the hall, pursued by Psyche's furious yowl.
Ophelia ran into him in the doorway of her room, the vibrator in one hand and the shotgun in the other. "Zelda wouldn't come here to fool around with my sex toys." Gideon wouldn't have left this kind of mess, either. The chief flushed deep red as she shoved the purple vibrator into his hand. "It has to mean something," she added, figuring it out even as she spoke. She whirled, kicked the area rug away, and knelt to open the secret compartment.
"That slime!" She grabbed the pile of snapshots. "That unspeakable lump of shit!" Ophelia shoved the shotgun under her arm, snapped off the rubber band, and leafed through the photos. She glared at the gawking chief. "I can handle being accused of murder," she said, slapping the photos into his unoccupied hand. Murder wasn't far from the truth. "But this child-abuse crap really burns me up. God only knows what harm that sleaze bucket has done to Joanna."
The chief stared at the photos with Christmas-gift glee. He avoided Ophelia's eyes, his gaze flicking toward her shotgun.
"No, I did not take these photos," Ophelia said. "No, I didn't know they were here, no, I will not put the gun down--and where the hell is my niece?"
She stormed down the hall past the cop. Zelda wouldn't just walk off. Not only was there nowhere to walk to except the river, and she knew Zelda wasn't there, but Zelda would have left a note. She spied the unfamiliar bowl on the floor holding scraps. Where had it come from? Not Zelda. Ophelia thought about calling Vi. Best not to start a panic yet.
"Ms. Beliveau." The chief came into the kitchen. "I need you to stop right there." He dropped the photos on the table and yanked at his gun, his other hand still clamped around the purple vibrator.
"You look ridiculous," Ophelia said.
Psyche hissed and swiped at the cop's leg. He yelped and swore at the cat. "Ms. Beliveau--"
"I have to find my niece." She wrenched open the door and leaped down the steps. A solitary Midol stared up at her, blue against the dead grass. "How did that pill get there?"
"Ms. Beliveau, I don't want to have to get rough with you."
Ophelia turned with a brilliant smile. "Then don't."
The chief wavered in the warm spring sunshine. Two doors down, a white Lexus drove up. Lisa Wyler jumped out and plunged toward them, waving her arms. Ophelia spied the first earring, then the yellow one at the verge of the drive. She strode across her dead lawn and the driveway, toward Donnie's house.
"Ms. Beliveau!" thundered the chief.
The third earring glistened in the sun on Donnie's trim green grass. Ophelia's heart thumped frantically and her fangs slotted down hard.
"She's not at school," Lisa sobbed, crossing Donnie's yard. "Did she come back here?"
Hell. Ophelia pushed her fangs up. "I haven't seen her, Lisa, but I'm afraid--"
A hard hand gripped Ophelia's arm and the cool muzzle of a gun jabbed into her back. "Ms. Beliveau, you're under arrest," the chief said. "If you so much as look at me, I'll shoot."
"You're right," Zelda said from her perch on Joanna's shoulders. "The tile stops here." She licked a bleeding finger and pounded a hunk of drywall down into the bathtub, then started with the knife again. Her hand howled with the pain of fighting the knife against backer board and tiles, jamming it into closely spaced studs in the front and one end of the closet, knocking against exterior wall at the other end, and finally trying the backer board again. Joanna had done her share of messing with the walls, and it was Joanna who had suggested Zelda sit on her shoulders and try the top of the wall, which might not be tiled. "Thank God one of us is thinking straight. When I get pissed off, my brain short-circuits." She grunted, forcing the knife sideways to widen the hole. "I'm so mad I'm ready to bust."
"I'm just plain scared," Joanna said.
"I used to think I was a patient person." Zelda bashed at the drywall, and another hunk fell away. "I used to think I had self-control."
"I used to think I was a wimp," Joanna said. "So did you. But I'm not a wimp. I'm just scared."
"Rightly so." Zelda changed hands, braced herself, and smashed her bruised fist against the last bit of wallboard. "That's it. Here I go." She folded the knife, dropped it in her pocket, and hefted herself to a standing position on Joanna's shoulders.
"Oh God," Joanna said. "I'll die in here alone."
"You won't be alone for long," Zelda panted. She slung one leg through and toppled sideways, scrabbling at the hole to slow her descent, landing with a thump in the tub. "So far, so good." She headed straight for the window, which faced in the direction of Joanna's house. "No cars at your place. I'll be right back." From the only room across the hall, the view was similarly bleak: no vehicles in Ophelia's drive either.
Zelda skittered downstairs and through the main floor a mile a minute. No phone. One locked door. Probably Donnie's office, where of course his phone would be. She kicked the office door, yelped, and Joanna wailed wordlessly from above.
"Coming!" Zelda bounded up the stairs to the room where they had been confined. An ornate chair and dresser, a king-size bed covered in a red velvet spread. Ick. Obviously it was Donnie's room. The decor was a parody of Blood and Velvet, and a picture of Violet dominated the dresser. Tears jumped into Zelda's eyes, immediately superseded by sick fury at the thought of Donnie anywhere near her mother. Her emerging fangs, which had been mercifully quiescent for a while, throbbed angrily. She cast around the room for a way out of this mess, her brain pulsing with thoughts of vengeance and bloody murder.
Aha! Donnie had left the hammer on the bedroom floor instead of stowing it back in his belt, which showed how rattled he must be, because he never went anywhere without a hammer. Zelda couldn't bring herself to feel the least bit sorry for him. She jammed the claw of the hammer under one of the nails in the door. "I'm going to get you out. Would you believe Donnie has a picture of my mom in here? He's so vile!"
"Did you call the cops?" Joanna asked.
"I couldn't get into his office, where the phone is." Zelda wrenched hard and her biceps screamed, but the nail came partway out. "I swear, he will never touch you. Or my mother." Her fangs bucked inside their slots, and the tip that had already broken through tore a little farther down. Zelda took a deep breath to quell the pain. "I am vampire," she whispered to herself, verging on maniacal laughter. She savored the small trickle of blood from her torn gum. "I will prevail." Rising confidence and fear clashed inside her.