Sunrise in a Garden of Love & Evil (5 page)

"You want the plaster cast?" he asked. "Hold on, I'll get a box for it out of my trunk so it won't get broken."

Tears welled in the older girl's eyes. "You don't want it? You're not gonna arrest my dad?"

"Nah." Gideon fetched a cardboard box, giving her time, praying she wouldn't cry.

"But...why not?"

He smiled. "Ms. Beliveau doesn't want me to."

The girl let out a shuddering sigh and fiddled with a pentagram on a gold chain against her chest. "Are you going to see Ophelia again?" The girl's moist eyes pleaded with him.

Hell, yes.
"Sure."
Just don't cry.
"What's your name?"

"Joanna Wyler. That's my sister." Joanna fished a grubby tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. She scowled at the younger girl. "Connie, don't rub your face all over that dog. That's gross."

"Is not," Connie retorted. "Come on, Gretchen. Come meet Psyche."

"Dummy," Joanna said. "Psyche's a cat. Dogs and cats don't mix."

"Do too." Connie skipped toward the trailer, and Gretchen trotted cheerfully beside her.

Joanna said, "I'm not allowed to speak to Ophelia anymore. Tell her I'm really, really sorry, and can you give her this?" She fingered the delicate chain but didn't remove it. "It's Zelda's. I found it in the driveway." Her fingers gripped the pentagram, and she took a deep, longing breath. "I wish I could be Zelda. She's so lucky. She's so cool."

"Psyche!" Connie cooed at the edge of the house.

The gray cat picked her way daintily from beneath the trailer, her yellow eyes lit on Gretchen, and she came to a complete stop. Stared. Took a few more steps, and Gretchen stretched forward, nostrils quivering. Elegantly, the two female animals touched noses. Psyche sidled past Gretchen's leg and meowed at Connie.

"Told you," the child said. "Gretchen's a girl. Psyche only hates
boys
."

Joanna's chin wobbled. "See, I'm wrong again. I'm such a failure. Zelda's never wrong. And her mom owns a club. I'll never get to go to a club."

God help me,
Gideon thought,
she's going to blubber.

"And she doesn't have these awful boobs," Joanna wailed. "My life is so over."

Jesus. Gideon blinked at Joanna's chest, which he had tried not to notice bulging in her too-small tank top. What the hell did you say to a kid? Nice rack? This was why he wasn't a therapist. "There's nothing wrong with your breasts."

The girl blushed. "I can't do gymnastics anymore. They bounce too much, and the boys stare at me at school." She blushed even more. Why had she picked him to unload on?

Joanna hurried on, unstoppable. "It absolutely sucks. I wish I was skinny like Zelda. She can wear anything she wants. She can
do
anything she wants."

"Give Zelda time," Gideon said. "Look at her mom and Ophelia."
Very nice racks.
"Genetics will catch up with Zelda sooner or later."

"She won't have to dress all preppy and boring," Joanna continued bitterly. "How old is old enough to have sex?"

Christ. Where were the girl's parents? "When you're grown up," Gideon said sternly. "When you find some guy you love. You shouldn't even be thinking about it now. Ignore the boys. They're gonna look, 'cause that's what boys do, but that's all they should be doing for several more years."

"That's what Ophelia said." Tears glistened in the kid's eyes. "She probably hates me now. Zelda hates me, too. Not that she was ever my friend, but now she'll never speak to me again." Resolutely, she pulled the necklace over her head. "Please take this to Ophelia. She can give it back to Zelda."

Gideon ignored her outstretched hand. "Why not give it to Zelda yourself when you see her at school? It's not your fault your dad vandalized Ophelia's place."

Joanna shook her head, lip wobbling. The tears rolled down her cheeks. Gideon dug in the side pocket of his Mercedes and handed Joanna a napkin. She blew her nose and wiped her eyes.

"Listen," Gideon said. "Ophelia doesn't hate you, and Zelda won't hold it against you." Memory thwacked him with inspiration. "She understands what a bore it is to be a prep. Go talk to her."
Go cry all over her
.
This is why I avoid domestic calls
.
Give me a nice clean homicide any day.
"You'll see."

Joanna clutched the pendant dramatically to her chest as if it linked her to Zelda's magic. Words tumbled out. "My dad didn't do the cat thing, I promise. That was really creepy. He'd never do anything like that. Please make sure Ophelia knows."

"I'll tell her," said Gideon gently. "Any idea who might have done it?"

Joanna shook her head. "No. No way. People like Ophelia. She's so nice." A spasm of misery crossed her face.

Gideon squatted in the mud, picked up the now-dry plaster cast, and turned it upside down into the box. "Did your mom send you to get this?"

Joanna nodded. "She's all mad 'cause my dad went to buy tires we can't afford. You're not gonna arrest Ophelia either, huh? Because of the marijuana, I mean. My dumb dad planted it. He figured if she called the cops, they'd see it and arrest her. My mom told him that was stupid."

Yep,
thought Gideon. "Ophelia might not be so forgiving if this happens again. Can we get your parents and Ophelia together to discuss it?"

Panic flashed across Joanna's face. "No! We gotta go." A battered white van turned into the driveway two doors down. "Oh, no!" she moaned. "Did they have to show up now? I look awful when I've been crying!"

Yep,
thought Gideon again, eyeing the vaguely familiar young man emerging from the passenger door.

"Joanna's got a
boyfriend
," Connie sang.

"I do not." Joanna scowled.

A second man, several years older and with daggers tattooed on each arm, appeared around the front of the van. "That's Burton Tate," Gideon said.

"You know him and his brother?" Joanna clasped her hands ecstatically in front of her breasts. "Aren't they fabulous?"

Nope.
"I went to school with Burton," Gideon said. "The kid's his baby brother?"

"Gabe," Connie said. "Gabe's a babe."

Joanna rounded on her sister. "Shut up!" She blew her nose fiercely. "Our dad has a gig with their band. At a club. It's not fair!"

The younger man noticed Joanna, waved, and grinned. Joanna turned brilliant red and waved shyly in return. The older brother stared for a second, then whacked Gabe on the shoulder and led him toward the house. A few seconds later the brothers returned carrying a guitar case and a battered cardboard box. That idiot Wyler had clearly forgotten his equipment.

Gideon raised a hand to Burton, who nodded and swung back into the van. They drove off and Joanna said, "We better go home. Connie has gym class. Thanks for the plaster cast. It'll calm my mom down. She's a bit of a wreck right now."

Pathetic,
thought Gideon, as he let Gretchen into the car and got in himself. He backed into the turnaround. Perfectly good kids stuck covering for stupid parents, trying to navigate puberty with no guidance at all. There were drugs involved, probably, but no way would he harass the children to find out.

He took a right onto the road and an immediate left into the gravel drive of the only other neighbor for a good quarter mile. He watched in his rearview mirror as the Wyler girls trooped home, Joanna cradling the box, Connie running back to pet Psyche three times before finally catching up. At the end of the long drive, which led into the woods, Gideon pulled up before a single-wide trailer of the same vintage as Ophelia's but in far worse repair. "You don't need to go across there," Donnie Donaldson had told him earlier. "Plato's real weird, and he can't see nothing from his place."

No vehicle stood before the house. Plato must have left already for the evening job Donnie had mentioned. Gideon strode up the steps to peer through the front door and knock. When no one answered, he turned his Mercedes around and rolled slowly back the way he had come.

About thirty feet before the end of the drive, invisible from the road but in full view from where he sat, was a deer stand high up in an oak. Gideon put on the emergency brake and followed a well-used path to the base of the tree. A rope ladder lay coiled on a branch twelve feet over his head. Gideon circled the oak, found the end of a single rope a foot above his head, and reached up to pull it. The rope ladder tumbled obligingly down.

The platform was tidy and bare but for a pair of rusty shears hanging on a nail. Thanks to careful pruning, the view of Ophelia's place was damn near perfect.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

Art paled. "How do you know about the blackmail?" Her dark eyes and strong features, familiar yet different on a female face, hardened with hostility.

"Wow," Ophelia blurted. "You are so obviously Gideon's sister."

"Unbelievable!" Art fumed. "He's been blabbing to one of his bimbo girlfriends!"

Bimbo girlfriends? This was the kind of man who had finally caught her fancy? "I am not one of your stupid brother's girlfriends," Ophelia gritted out.

The woman's eyes narrowed. "My brother's not stupid! The bimbos are."

Ophelia fought annoyance. "I only met him this afternoon."

"So what?" Art said. "I've been told he moves fast."

Ophelia could imagine. "Whatever he may have done with any number of bimbos, he didn't blab anything to me."

"Then how do you know?"

"My garden got vandalized today, and they sent Gideon to check it out. I overheard him talking to you about someone being blackmailed."

"Wonderful." Art threw up her hands and stomped across the lawn toward Andrea's house.

Ophelia gave chase. "What are you going to do about it?"

Art whirled. "It doesn't matter. You can't help, so forget it." She took the stairs two at a time, scooped a stray photo off the porch, and went inside.

Ophelia followed. "Of course I can help. Lord, what a mess."

"I promised I'd clean up," Art said. "It about killed Andrea to leave an untidy house."

"I'll do the bedrooms."

Ophelia set to work without giving Art a chance to object. Sooner or later, she would feel compelled to get whatever it was off her chest. Women with screwed-up love lives couldn't help confiding in vamps; it was one of the perks of the vampire gene. Not that Ophelia felt the least bit qualified to dispense advice, but blackmail she could deal with.

Art banged and clattered at the kitchen sink, but gradually the clamor lessened and the aroma of coffee wafted through the house. Ophelia put a load of towels in the washer and went to the kitchen. Gideon's sister slumped at the table over a mug of coffee, moodily gazing at a bowl of fruit. "It's not fair." She rearranged the apples and pears. "It's not illegal to pose nude."

"No," Ophelia encouraged her. "It isn't."

"I modeled for the art school to make extra money, and some creep took pictures without me knowing."

Ophelia poured herself coffee. "Icky."

"I'm a high-school art teacher. He threatened to tell the principal."

"The principal can't fire you for that."

"And send copies to all the male students at Bayou Gavotte High."

"Holy shit," Ophelia said, and dropped into a chair.

Art posed bunches of grapes over the apples. She took a long swallow of coffee and draped a banana along the side of the bowl.

"Did Andrea pose, too?"

"No!" A solitary apple remained on the table. Art took it in one hand and the stem in the other, and twisted until the stem came off. "Big Simon took a picture of her nursing little Simon. She's naked and so is the baby. The blackmailer's threatening to report her to Children's Services."

"For what?"

"Using her baby for sexual gratification."

"That's crap!" Ophelia said. "They can't take her kids away because of one perfectly innocent picture."

"You'd be surprised. The world is full of prudish Neanderthals. I know. I was married to one." Art reached into a drawer for an apple corer. "We know the blackmailer's connected with the print and photo shop, but we're not paying him one red cent. Andrea's gone to her mom's. Big Simon's out of town on business. I'm going to tell my brother about me, nothing about Andrea, and he'll shun me even more than he already does, but he'll arrest the guy and it'll be over with." Her voice trembled. "If the pictures get out, I'll give up teaching. Maybe I really
am
an exhibitionist. My ex certainly thought so. Oh, and I like hugging my students, too. That definitely makes me a pervert. I'll go tend bar in a vampire club, and my students can sneak in and leer at me, and the hell with everyone."

Ophelia grimaced. "You want to work in a club?"

Art banged a cutting board on the table. "You have a problem with that?"

"Of course not. My sister owns one." She frowned. "Do you like teaching? Do you really want to give it up?"

Tears glistened at the corners of Art's eyes. "What difference does that make?" She set the apple carefully in the middle of the board.

"It makes all the difference," said Ophelia. "You can't let some asshole destroy your career. I only met Gideon today, but I'm sure he wouldn't want that!"

Art poised the corer over the apple. "You want to know what'll happen when I tell him?" She lowered her voice and imbued it with obnoxious, patronizing patience. " 'Why did you have to pose nude, Art? That was asking for trouble. In fact, why did you divorce Steve? He's a perfectly nice guy.' Shit. Shit!" She jammed the corer down on the apple and caught her little finger underneath. Blood welled up, red and juicy and irresistible.

Ophelia grabbed Art's hand and clamped her mouth around the bloody finger, closing her eyes to savor every drop. The cut sealed shut. It was the crowning moment of a perfectly stupid day.

Gideon stopped the Mercedes at a light. "What next? Her sister or mine?"

Gretchen opened one eye and shut it again.

"Fortunately, the pervert's watching Ophelia, not those kids," Gideon said. "Which I wouldn't have thought a positive, but at least Ophelia can defend herself." He ruminated a moment. "Joanna's a hormonal catastrophe. Add peer pressure, a hefty dose of guilt, and a crush on a dude in his twenties." Women. Life would be so simple without them.

It struck him, quite suddenly, that his father must have come to the same conclusion. He continued in uneasy silence to the main intersection in downtown Bayou Gavotte. Ahead was the Impractical Cat, but he didn't need to see Leopard yet. To the left were most of the clubs in his kinky little hometown, including Blood and Velvet, Violet's club. Not much happened till after dark, however, so he made a right toward the residential area where Artemisia lived.

As Zelda opened the door she saw Joanna Wyler flinch.
Wimp,
she thought, but she felt sorry for the girl and so bathed the poor preppy thing in a friendly smile. "Hey, come on in." She wiped her flour-covered hands on the frilly pink apron she'd had since she was a kid.

"I can't." Joanna gulped. "I just came to bring your necklace. I found it in Ophelia's driveway."

"Thank you!" Zelda took the pentagram on its chain and gave Joanna a hug. "That's so sweet of you." She scanned the street. "How'd you get here?"

"Mom dropped me at the coffee shop. I'm supposed to do homework while my sister's at gymnastics." Joanna glanced nervously toward the street.

Zelda shrugged. Waited. Smiled.

"Mom would absolutely kill me if she knew I was here," Joanna added.

Go, then,
Zelda thought, but she said, "What she doesn't know won't hurt her. Sure you don't want to come inside? I'm making cookies."

The other girl shook her head so fast that Zelda had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Zelda waited again, wondering whether Joanna would speak or pass out from holding her breath. Finally, the words rushed out. "Can you give Ophelia a message?"

"No problem." Suddenly Zelda wished her mother were home, wished even more that Joanna didn't look so needy. "What is it?"

"It's 'cause my mom won't let me talk to her anymore."

"Big drag," Zelda said. "What's the message?"

"I feel so bad," Joanna mumbled. "I really
like
Ophelia."

"Everybody does," Zelda agreed, and then it hit her that Joanna's confessional mood might be something her mother had predicted. For some bizarre reason, screwed-up women had an urge to confide in vampires. Not that she knew whether she was going to be a vamp or not, but either way, she might be able to solve a mystery for Ophelia. "I could do with a coffee," she said. "The cookies can wait." She tossed her apron on the floor, wrote a note to her mom, grabbed her knapsack, and pulled the door shut behind her.

"Whoops," Ophelia said, feigning unconcern. "My bad. Look on the bright side. You won't need a bandage now." She sucked her fangs back into their slots while Art stared, eyes wide.

"Oh, my God." Gideon's sister glanced dazedly from Ophelia to her finger and back. "You're a vampire! That's so cool."

"Not particularly." Ophelia examined the apple and ate the slice stained with Art's blood.

"Does Andrea know?" Art still goggled.

"No, and neither would you if I hadn't screwed up just now. I don't exactly advertise." Through her vexation, Ophelia heard Vi's voice:
You'll get needy and then careless.
She'd been right. But Violet's proffered donor or transition man was not the right way to go.

Meanwhile, Art had turned into a goddamned tourist. "Show me your fangs again! How do you make them go in and out of your gums?"

Cripes. Ophelia showed her how the fangs worked. "I can slide them up and down on purpose, but they tend to come out on their own if I smell or taste blood." Or get angry. Or turned on.

"Fabulous! I always hoped vampires were real. Oh, my God, you just drank my blood! And the cut's totally healed. How did you do that?"

Ophelia sighed. "My spit heals small wounds pretty much instantly."

"Wow. You're not dead, are you? Will I turn into something weird?"

Ophelia rolled her eyes. "Of course not. It's just some genetic thing. Apart from the fangs, I'm completely normal." Except for the night vision and the ultrasensitive hearing and the exaggerated sense of smell. And the special spit. And--

"But you're irresistible, right?" Art giggled. "I knew the stories were true! For once, I was right and Gideon was wrong! He said it was just some dumb perversion."

Ophelia disregarded the lead weight punching into her heart. "Good. The more people who believe that, the better. We vamps have enough problems as it is." She paused. "I need you to keep your mouth shut."

"So...," Art said, as if she hadn't heard a word. "What did Gideon think of you?"

"What difference does it make?" Ophelia asked irritably. "He had the same reaction as any other man. Since he's obviously not shy where women are concerned, he hit on me the first chance he got. I told him where to go. Now, promise you won't tell anyone I'm a vamp. It's for your own safety as much as mine."

"Does Gideon know?"

She glared at Artemisia's growing grin. "No, and he doesn't need to. I called the cops as a warning to the guy who vandalized me, period. I don't need any more help. But Gideon's not taking no for an answer. He's acting like I need protection, investigating stuff I can take care of myself. If he finds out I'm a vamp, he'll be even worse."

"Gideon? No way. It'll scare the hell out of him. He may look sexy, but he's very conventional." Art laughed, suddenly full of mischief. "If you want to get rid of him, show him those fangs."

"Fine." Just fine. But..."I don't want to scare him off yet. If we set a trap for the blackmailer, we'll need him to take care of the evidence against you and Andrea."

"Destroy it, you mean? That's illegal!"

"Maybe not, if the only charge is blackmailing me."

"You? No way." Art stood and poured more coffee. "It's not worth the risk."

"Why not? There may be a slew of other innocent victims. We'll give Gideon something more important to think about than whoever vandalized me."

"It's a lousy idea." Art set her mug down and paced back and forth. "What will you do, get someone to take compromising pictures of you? You're running a small business. You'll be as vulnerable as I am."

Ophelia shook her head. "I'll
look
as vulnerable as you. That's the beauty of it. We'll use film, so it'll look normal bringing it into the print and photo shop. We can put pictures of my landscaping signs in people's gardens on the same roll, without showing enough to identify their houses. He won't know most of my customers are too bent to care about kinky pictures." As Art shook her head, still pacing, Ophelia tossed in her ace: "My biggest client is Constantine Dufray. He'll think it's a hoot. If the bondage types find out, they'll just razz me about improper technique. I don't advertise my connection with the clubs, but I don't go out of my way to hide it, either."

Art was stuck a few sentences back. "You know Constantine Dufray?"

Dazzled again. "Yes, I know him, yes, I can get you tickets or backstage passes or a personal introduction, and will you please keep your mind on more important matters? Do you have an old-fashioned camera? Not digital, I mean."

"Sure. I teach photography." Art gazed dreamily out the window. "Constantine. Cool."

"We'll take some pics at Blood and Velvet tonight. I'll be a dominatrix. Vi will find someone to pose with me. We'll have to borrow supplies from another club, because my sister doesn't allow anything to do with bondage in Blood and--"